


to sing aloud

by heartsighed



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, M/M, Slow Build, reposted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 21:44:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 53,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10625736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsighed/pseuds/heartsighed
Summary: The subtle shift in the makings of the world started on a day in February, but no one noticed when it happened. Later on, two years and one citywide census after the initial panic, scientists surmised it began at approximately 4:25 in the afternoon, give or take a few minutes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> oh my god i'm an idiot for deleting this on accident, i am so bad with ao3's formatting. anyway, this is a repost of this fic. :'( i'm so sorry i lost all of your wonderful comments.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hakyeon moves into the attic and Taekwoon gets caught petting a dog.

The subtle shift in the makings of the world started on a day in February, but no one noticed when it happened. Later on, two years and one citywide census after the initial panic, scientists surmised it began at approximately 4:25 in the afternoon, give or take a few minutes.

At the moment it occurred, though, everything seemed the same. Somewhere in the city, a secretary groaned after hanging up on another irate call from her boss. Somewhere else, a child fell off the creaky swing in the playground just two blocks from his house, setting off a pitiful wail. In yet another part of the city, a student dozed on the bus home from school, tinny music blasting in her lime green ear buds. People went about their business, doing what they always did at that time in the day. The air was the same, the traffic was the same, the chatter was the same, and the city was the same as any other city at four o’clock in the afternoon.

Five years later, the change began to show.

The first incident that made the news was the child whose skin danced with flames. His parents hid his secret for approximately two weeks. Then, he burned down a wooden bench in a park and a nearby jogger caught the entire scene on his phone camera. The child was sent to the hospital. People talked. But soon, as more children began to manifest strange abilities, they forgot the name of the first child. And the second. And the third.

There was something in the water, people whispered. But there wasn’t; the water was fine. Besides, all the adults drank it and nobody over the age of five had shown any indication of abnormal behavior. At first, they believed it only happened to some, but as the years went by, they realized that many just discovered their abilities later on in their lives. By this time, the news had spread throughout the nation. Everywhere, parents sent their children to hospitals to see bewildered doctors, but every new case that popped up was in the same city, not spreading further than the farthest suburbs.

The scientists ordered a census and determined the date and time that the change occurred, and nothing was the same again.

First, they built walls—two massive concentric rings of concrete. There were no soldiers or policemen, just guards who opened the gates for the cars that passed. For census purposes, the scientists said, but traffic flowing in and out slowed as time passed.

Then, their name disappeared. Not that it was taken away or anything, but as people never really left anymore, they stopped calling their city by its name and just started calling it  _the_  city. They only left on business, and most children stopped commuting to other places for school. By some unspoken pact, everyone who sought higher education went to the local university. 

Sometimes, people moved into the city, and no one noticed. As the first generations born after the change aged, though, they began to realize when someone was too young to be uncursed. People still kept in contact with the outside world, with relatives, business branches, researchers, the government, and other points of necessary communication, but nothing was the same again. 

Taekwoon faintly remembers the years before the change. Given, he had only been three when the panic began, so most of those memories are heavily supplemented by information from his parents and siblings, but he treasures them all the same. By the time he had reached his fifth birthday, his family had known that he would be special in a way that none of his older sisters would ever be. He was the first of his family to be born after the change, but it was not something he ever had the chance to be proud of. 

His next-door neighbor, his elder by two years, began wandering in his sleep the night after he turned five. As he grew older, the mysterious force that compelled him to unconsciously unlock doors in the middle of the night began to manifest during the daytime, too. His family moved away when Taekwoon graduated fourth grade, following their son as he roamed across the country. 

How unfortunate, his parents had whispered in the kitchen late at night. The poor boy would never find a home to settle down.

Taekwoon had rather envied him at the time. At least he got an excuse to leave.

 --

Hakyeon moves back to his hometown one month after his twenty-seventh birthday. His father is ready to retire and he wants his son to acquaint himself with the workings of the flower shop before he passes on the family business.

Hakyeon is ready to return to the city of his childhood again. While he knows he will no longer see his high school and university friends much anymore, he doesn't think he will be too upset about it. Even when he is alone, the lingering chill that surrounds him never leaves. He will miss his shared flat with the homemade candles and the aloe plants in the windowsill of his room, but there is nostalgia and home in the empty apartment over the flower shop. He embraces his early memories of accompanying his parents to work and hiding in the attic, which now houses his bed and wardrobe.

His parents live a house thirty minutes away by bus, so he is still alone in some ways, but he has Tux to keep him company. Besides, thirty minutes is nothing compared to a looming wall and five hours of driving.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay, honey?” His mother fusses with his hair, sweeping clumps of dust out of the lavender strands. “You need to clean up before you go to bed tonight, or the dust will settle in your lungs.”

“I know, mom,” Hakyeon tells her gently. Sometimes, he thinks she misses being able to mother him. The last time they lived in the same city, he was in middle school and she could walk upstairs to his room anytime she wanted.

“You should come by for dinner on Sunday,” she continues. “Now that you’re managing the store, your dad won’t come in every day anymore.”

“Okay.” 

“And make sure to go buy groceries within a week, okay? I don’t trust that frozen junk in your freezer.”

Hakyeon laughs, “I will.”

“I just worry,” she sighs. “You don’t have any friends here. What if you get lonely?”

“I’ll make friends,” Hakyeon reassures her.

Later, when she leaves and he’s finished dusting, he takes a walk in the waning twilight and settles on a nearby park bench opposite a small playground. He still faintly remembers the orientation of the swing set and sand pit from his childhood, but all the structures are the wrong colors, covered in fresh, unfamiliar paint.

The two children sitting in the sand pit spit bits of orange and green slime at each other, giggling when their projectiles cover stick to their clothes, until their mother sees and scolds them to stop. Hakyeon crosses his ankles and props his face in his hands, chuckling fondly.

The mother stops wiping at the front of their shirts to glance at him, her brow wrinkling slightly. Hakyeon dips his head, giving what he hopes is a friendly smile. The woman nods back, eyes lingering with a cross of curiosity and confusion, before redirecting her attention back to her children.

Hakyeon thinks about standing, shaking her hand, and introducing himself as the Chas’ youngest son. She will know his parents by name if not by face if she has lived in the neighborhood more than a month. In the end, he leans back and holds his breath, crossing and uncrossing his ankles until the mother and children are long gone. When the first street lights begin to flicker on, he slowly rises and walks home as the wind ruffles his hair, echoing his exasperated sigh.

\--

Taekwoon prefers not to speak unnecessarily. He always thinks twice before he opens his mouth. Be careful in public, his parents have always told him. And he is careful. He wears face masks constantly, avoids eye contact, and sometimes just stuffs ear buds into his ears for the dead silence. He has to be careful, as he could cause an accident if he so much as hums inadvertently in a taxi. 

Thus, he lives a silent, unobtrusive life. He sits in an office and edits articles about the latest fashion trends, sometimes standing against the dark back wall of a studio when he needs to supervise a photo shoot. He goes out to eat with his coworkers sometimes, but most days he takes the bus home and plays the piano in the empty living room—soundproofed courtesy of an old college acquaintance—until Hongbin gets home again.

A quiet life.

Taekwoon presses the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, gritting his teeth at the incessant noise pounding in his ears.

“Hyung! Are you listening to me?”

Taekwoon lets out a very quiet whimper.

“Ah, this is no fun,” Jaehwan whines, his voice piercingly high. “You never want to chat with me, hyung. Hyukkie’s working on his essay, so I can’t talk to him right now either.”

Taekwoon looks enviously at the boy sitting to their right, long limbs tangled and jiggling as he mulls over his laptop. He makes no indication of having heard them through the white headphones jammed over his ears. Jaehwan sighs and rests his head on the table.

Taekwoon waits.

Predictably, after a few seconds of silence, Jaehwan straightens again as a thought hits him. “Hey, hyung, have you seen the flower shop across the street?”

Taekwoon refrains from answering. It’s a pointless question; he’s been coming to the café for years, and the flower shop has been there the whole time.

“There’s going to be a new manager,” Jaehwan starts, laying his hand to one side of his lips as if telling a secret. “The owner’s son, apparently.”

Taekwoon grunts, but Jaehwan isn’t satisfied with his reaction, judging by how he roll his eyes.

“Did you forget? The Chas’ youngest son went to high school and university outside the city. He’s coming back after almost fifteen years.” Jaehwan stares at him for a few seconds, then shrugs when Taekwoon gives no reaction aside from taking another bite of cake.

\-- 

The flower shop is quaint, Taekwoon has to admit. It’s a small, rickety, white-painted affair with lace in the windows and lights strung across the ceiling. Taekwoon has never been inside, but he peeks in the window some days to admire the overflowing blooms. Thus, on one of these days, while gazing at a bouquet of pale yellow roses, Taekwoon doesn’t notice the black puppy until it rubs its nose on the leg of his slacks.

He jumps, eyes darting from side to side. Upon determining that there is no one in the immediate vicinity, he bends down to pat its head. And scratch behind its ears. And coo at its tiny tail wagging furiously. The puppy pants with excitement, nuzzling at his hand before flopping over so he can scratch its belly, possibly eliciting a squeal of delight from Taekwoon.

“Um.” Taekwoon tears his hand away and leaps to his feet, spinning around and coming eye-to-eye with a sheepish-looking man in a deep blue apron. He tries to stuff his hands into his pockets, but misses the opening and just jabs the side of his leg, hard. As he slowly turns a deep shade of maroon, his ears burning, the man laughs and rubs the back of his neck. He flicks away his bangs, colored a muted lavender, Taekwoon notices absently, and peers up at him with big eyes through a veil of eyelashes. “I couldn’t help but notice he likes you a lot.”

Taekwoon opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.

 _Say something_ , a small voice that sounds like Sanghyuk hisses in the back of his mind. Still nothing. Maybe he just needs to open it a little wider.

That doesn’t work either.

The purple-haired man’s eyebrows begin to scrunch in confusion. For some reason, the only thought going through Taekwoon’s head is how soft his hair looks. And how his nose is even cuter when it wrinkles with concern. And how— 

“Sir?” Taekwoon realizes with a start that the man is a lot closer than before. A hand waves in front of his face, and reality of the situation returns with another rush of blood to his face.

Spinning on his heel, he sprints as fast as he can down the sidewalk, ignoring the handsome employee’s calls behind him, and doesn’t slow down until he reaches the bus stop.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Taekwoon gets locked out and eats instant ramen.

Taekwoon first heard the term “luck’s children” in seventh grade from the girl sitting two seats to the right in homeroom.

“I heard my mom talking about it,” the girl had boasted during lunch to a circle of other middle schoolers perched on the surrounding desks and chairs. “The Census Bureau is gonna publish how many there are every five years from now on.”

Later, Taekwoon would learn that in a city with a population of 1.5 million people, 5,000 was a pitifully small number.

“They don’t have any powers,” the girl had said in a serious tone. “Because they were born in the outside.”

Taekwoon didn’t think much of this conversation until his third year of college, when he had the good fortune of drawing a single in the housing lottery.

“Man, you lucked out,” Yoseob remarked on his first rounds as RA. “You picked the only other single on this floor. Aside from mine, obviously.”

At 2:30 the next morning, Taekwoon didn’t think so at all.

The screeching had begun at approximately midnight, accompanied by sporadic bursts of pop music and whooping. The other residents had repeatedly pounded at the door, even calling in Yoseob at one point to mediate. There was the sound of a quiet apology, and for a while (ten minutes), all was silent.

Then, the thumping started.

It was rhythmic and heavy and made Taekwoon want to tear his hair out. Sometimes, a soft voice floated out, singing along to random lyrics. He lay on his bed, hands fisted in his sheets, and grinded his teeth as each thump vibrated in his skull. When he reached his breaking point another half hour later, he finally rose and pounded on his neighbors’ door, which quickly swung open to a first year’s bloodless face. 

It was like this Taekwoon first met Lee Jaehwan, lying on his bed and nodding along to tinny music in his earbuds with his heels propped up against the wall, oblivious to his roommate’s terrified stutters. Coincidentally, their first encounter was also the first time (of many) Taekwoon felt a strong urge to punch Jaehwan in the face.

\--

Taekwoon plays the baby grand at the Rosebud Café on his days off. Sometimes, late at night, Jaehwan sits next to him on the bench and sings along. Jaehwan’s voice is smooth and rich, filling flexible notes the piano cannot cover. Taekwoon wants to sing too, but he restrains himself in the shop. 

On Saturday night, though, his buoyant mood is punctured by the incessant giggling from behind the coffee machine. After the first hour, he takes a break to sip coffee and glare at Jaehwan on the other side of the counter.

“Stop laughing at me,” Taekwoon says when Jaehwan comes to lean against the glass partition next to him. He levels the barista with a dead stare.

Jaehwan shrugs. “I wasn’t laughing at you. Wonsik told me a funny story.”

“He got off his shift half an hour ago,” Taekwoon points out.

“Wanna hear the story?” Jaehwan continues, unperturbed. He doesn’t seem to care when Taekwoon fails to respond. “Wonsik saw some guy make a total fool of himself in front of Hakyeon yesterday. Apparently, he got caught petting Hakyeon's puppy and was too embarrassed to talk to him, so he just gave up and ran away.”

Taekwoon hums noncommittally, keeping his eyes on the dribble of milk foam down the side of his cup.

“I just thought it was really funny that you tripped when you got to the corner.”

Jaehwan is already out of reach when Taekwoon lunges for his collar. He dances around behind the bar, giggling as Taekwoon clambers up on his stool to better reach over the glass partition. “Please get your knee off the table, sir.”

Taekwoon finally gives up when Jaehwan’s manager fixes him with a stink eye.

“Jokes aside,” Jaehwan says, fiddling with a stack of coffee filters. “He seems like a pretty nice guy from the few times we’ve talked. You should say hi next time you see him.” 

Taekwoon nods. They both know he won’t say hi, but Jaehwan pretends he doesn’t know that. He can be nice sometimes, Taekwoon surmises.

\-- 

Thursday night is date night for Hongbin and Wonsik. Sanghyuk has already called saying that he would be staying the night at a friend’s place to work on a project due the next week, so Taekwoon passes by the convenient store to buy instant ramen in preparation for a night of much needed peace and quiet.

His phone buzzes with a text when he’s on the stairs of the apartment complex. 

[8:23pm] Hongbin: hey hyung, wonsik was feeling tired so we’re having a netflix date at our place instead. do you mind staying out for another two or three hours? 

He frowns. 

[8:24pm] Taekwoon: fuck no what are you watching

[8:24pm] Hongbin: breaking bad

[8:25pm] Taekwoon: i can watch with you

[8:26pm] Hongbin: that would be fine if we were just watching tv tho…

Taekwoon pauses and retracts his hand from the door handle.

[8:26pm] Hongbin: sikkie said he might be up for it on the sofa

[8:26pm] Hongbin: idk if you want to be here for that

Taekwoon huffs, short and angry, and begins banging on the door. He can hear a yelp and a shuffling sound inside. 

“Who is that?” Wonsik’s deep voice is laced with a bit of panic. 

“Oh my god is that you, hyung?” Hongbin’s whines are muffled by the door, but his tone is clear.

Taekwoon hisses and turns to his phone as a young woman with tightly curled hair emerges from the elevator and hurries down the hall, clearly avoiding eye contact with him.

[8:28pm] Taekwoon: fuck you

[8:28pm] Taekwoon: why didn’t you go to his place

[8:29pm] Taekwoon: i’ll get hyuk to torch wonsiks shoe collection if you touch my couch

[8:30pm] Hongbin: way to be a cockblock hyung

[8:31pm] Hongbin: he’s tearing up now

[8:31pm] Hongbin: please don’t come in he’s crying naked on the carpet

Taekwoon sighs. As much as he would like to spend the night in the apartment, he would rather not see Wonsik sobbing with his genitals on display. He turns away from the door to seek an alternative source of hot water for his noodles. 

“Why are you here so late?” Jaehwan frowns from a table near the door. Across from him sits Seokjin, the other pastry chef and one of Jaehwan’s roommates. They are both sipping nonchalantly on dainty cups of tea.

“Wonsik and Hongbin are probably fucking on my couch right now,” Taekwoon said mournfully.

Seokjin chokes. 

Jaehwan pats his back absently and wrinkles his nose. “Oh, ew.” 

“I’ve had that couch longer than I’ve been friends with Hongbin,” Taekwoon continues, blinking at his shoes pitifully. “And now it's ruined. Can I have some hot water for my ramen?”

Seokjin stops coughing long enough to nod and escape to the kitchen.

Jaehwan gestures to the now empty seat in front of him, but Taekwoon does not want to make conversation at the moment. He still feels a bit disgruntled from being denied his peaceful Thursday night by his horny roommate and his boyfriend, and he does not want to answer the intrusive questions Jaehwan will ask about said horny roommate and boyfriend. Therefore, he pretends not to see and walks across the café to sit at an empty two-person table.

Presently, Seokjin reemerges with a pair of disposable chopsticks and a teapot of steaming water. He sets both items down without a word or even a glance in Taekwoon’s direction.

He seems nice, Taekwoon notes. Unlike Jaehwan, Seokjin does not make unnecessary conversation or laugh like a banshee or prod Taekwoon with unforgiving fingers when he asks intrusive questions about Hongbin’s sex life. But then again, maybe Seokjin is different when he’s not dying of mortification after hearing about the sordid events happening on Taekwoon’s couch. At least he  _is_  mortified. 

Three minutes pass, and the noodles are ready to eat. For efficiency, midway through the first bowl, Taekwoon pulls out the second and fills it with water. This way, when he finishes eating the first bowl, the second one will have just finished cooking. If he cooks both at the same time, the second bowl will have cooled, and Taekwoon refuses to eat anything less than piping hot. Instant ramen is an art.

Taekwoon is on his third and final bowl when the chimes above the door jingle. Chairs scrape as Jaehwan and Seokjin rise to return to their stations. Jaehwan shouts some form of casual greeting at the new customer, so it must be someone he knows. Taekwoon spares a half-interested glance at the—apparently—only other person who would come to the café this late on a Thursday night and freezes when he sees the man’s purple hair.

He chomps down, letting broken noodles splash down into the bowl, and chews furiously. He eyes the door (unfortunately, very far, as he had been avoiding Jaehwan and Seokjin when he chose his seat) and the closest trash can (also very far) and finally the three empty styrofoam bowls that are still stacked in front of him.

The bowls combined with the distance are his downfall. If he runs now, one hand holding the three empty bowls and the other toting the one he is still currently eating, he will not be able to carry his briefcase. He would therefore have to make  _two_  trips, one to discard the bowls and the other to retrieve his briefcase, leaving himself vulnerable to running into the purple-haired florist (Hakyeon, his brain supplies) on his way back from the first trip.

His only choice at this point, he realizes, is to keep quiet until either Hakyeon leaves or he finishes his noodles and can carry all the bowls in a stack with one hand. Pinning his eyes resolutely to the noodles, he slurps as quickly and discreetly as he can manage. He’s almost to the bottom of the bowl when he notices a presence hovering near the table. He considers pretending not to notice for a moment, but that is considered rude in most circles and Hakyeon probably doesn’t even remember him from the other day. So, in a split-second decision, he looks up.

“Hi,” the purple-haired man says in a polite tone. His eyes skitter briefly to the stack of ramen bowls. “Um, sorry if I have the wrong person, but you were at my store petting my dog the other day, weren’t you?”

Taekwoon does not want to talk to this man. He does not want to tell Hakyeon that yes, he was the man fawning embarrassingly in public over a puppy in front of his flower shop. However, he has already looked up and made eye contact and Hakyeon is looking at him expectantly, so he decides to stall for time. 

He chews. 

He swallows.

He lifts the styrofoam bowl and drinks the hot broth and adds it to the top of the stack. Hakyeon has started fidgeting, so he must act fast.

With a grunt, he shoves back his chair, simultaneously reaching under the table to retrieve his briefcase and snatching the stack of bowls. Then, he is rushing past Hakyeon toward the trashcan, weaving between tables at a speed honed by years of experience (from his high school soccer days, not from running through cafés on a regular basis), and finally pushing his way out the door and down the street as fast as he can run.

\--

Hakyeon first learns the cat-eyed man’s name the day his display case shatters.

The day starts out as average as any other day. Business is slow on a rainy weekday, and the part-timer Sungjae had called in sick that morning, so Hakyeon is alone. He eats lunch behind the counter at one, absently chewing on a sandwich at the back of the store and sweeping ribbon bits off his worktable. As he finishes the last bite, brushing stray crumbs off his fingers, the musical chimes over his door jingle and a tall young man with a messenger bag slung over one broad shoulder gives him a small smile and nod as he steps through.

“Is it alright if I take pictures of some of the flowers?” he asks, holding up his phone. “It’s for a project I’m working on for a class.”

“Go ahead.” 

Hakyeon returns his attention to cleaning up his table and picking flowers for another bouquet request, and the student is silent in the back of the shop, save for the occasional sound of the camera app on his phone.

After a few minutes pass, the door opens again, this time for a lightly-pimpled teenager in a bomber jacket. His eyes shift as he pauses in the doorway, landing on the empty front of the shop. He grimaces, sliding his hands into his pockets and hunching over.

With a sniff, Hakyeon turns back to the bouquet in front of him, keeping an eye on the teenager. The boy glances at him curiously, but Hakyeon just snips at a few thorns on a pink rose, his face blank. After a moment, the boy turns and continues walking to a display case of multicolored ribbons. He bends to stare down at the glass box and very carefully prods the glass with his finger.

At first, nothing happens. As Hakyeon begins to turn away, he sees something white appear under the teen's index finger. He inhales sharply as some sort of milky frost begins to spread across the glass, quickly obscuring from view the ribbons underneath. Hakyeon takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. If there's one thing he refuses to tolerate, it's any sort of defacing of the store.

“Excuse me, sir,” Hakyeon calls from his stool. “Please take your hand off the display case.”

The boy starts, whipping around to stare at Hakyeon, who tenses.

“Do you mind changing it back?” Hakyeon continues as nonchalantly as he can. “In the condition that it is now, the ribbons aren’t visible, and I would rather not ask you to pay to replace the glass.” 

With a yelp, the boy stumbles over his feet and runs straight for the door, heels squeaking on the damp floor.

“Hey!” Hakyeon shouts, half-rising from his stool, but the teen is long gone. Before the door swings shut, Hakyeon can hear excited chattering and bursts of laughter over the pattering of feet.

“Those boys are regular pranksters at the shops around here.” The student who was taking pictures in the back is now inspecting the case with great interest. His lips tilt with a glimmer of amusement. “Han Sanghyuk,” he introduces himself.

Hakyeon groans, “Oh, come on. I’ve been here for less than three weeks, and I already need to replace the display.”

“You moved back to the city after college, right?” Sanghyuk shrugs at Hakyeon’s questioning glance. “I know the staff at the coffee shop across the street. It’s a big deal for someone from the outside to move here in this city.”

“I lived here originally,” Hakyeon frowns.

“You’re one of the few young people in this city who has adjusted to the outside,” Sanghyuk explains, “No one has lived out there for more than a week at time, and mostly in hotels and stuff, but for you, it’s  _normal_.”

“It wasn’t normal,” Hakyeon mutters. “I couldn’t get used to it. That’s why I came back.”

“Hm,” Sanghyuk eyes him for a second before turning back to the display case. “Anyway, what was that kid doing? The glass looks weird now.”

Hakyeon leans in with him. Upon closer inspection, he realizes the cloudiness is not frost, but tiny bubbles in the glass. “What is that?”

Sanghyuk shrugs.

With a groan, Hakyeon rests on his elbow against the case, and promptly yelps as the entire box shatters and he plants a hand in a pile of glass shards. Sanghyuk stares for a moment, then bends down and picks up one of the shards. Before Hakyeon can stop him, he sticks out his tongue and gives it a tentative lick.

“What—"

Sanghyuk grins, picking out another piece and handing it to Hakyeon. 

“It’s sweet,” Hakyeon exclaims upon touching to his tongue.

“It’s candy,” Sanghyuk laughs. “That kid turned your display glass into candy.”

Hakyeon groans again.

“I’m supposed to be meeting with my cousin for lunch in ten minutes,” Sanghyuk glances at his phone. “I’ll have to leave soon.”

“Younger cousin?” Hakyeon asks, thinking of the toddlers he had seen clinging to his sister’s leg when he showed up at her house a week ago. He’d never met them in person before. He didn’t come back much during his high school and university years.

“He’s older, but he acts like a kid when he’s shy,” Sanghyuk laughs. “Oh! That’s him over there. Bye.” With a wave, Sanghyuk takes off, leaping out the door and waving a gangly arm at a man standing with his back to the door on the opposite side of the street, apparently scrutinizing the special of the day written on the chalkboard in front of the café.

“Taekwoon-hyung!” Sanghyuk shrieks as he sprints across the street.

When the man turns, Hakyeon recognizes his puppy-petting sprinter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hakyeon gets pranked and loses an umbrella.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for smoking in the last part

Hakyeon’s birthday is in the middle of summer. The day he turned five, he woke up and thought he was going to suffocate from the heat. His mother had panicked at the cold “sweat” drenching his sheets. He dimly remembered crying icy tears as she had stroked the cold skin of his forehead, calling the hospital for help.

He didn’t have pneumonia, the doctors determined. He wasn’t even sick.

He spent that summer in the house, downing boxes upon boxes of popsicles and blasting air conditioning until his parents were forced to put on sweaters or freeze.

Towards the end of August that year, he figured out how to lower the temperature of the air around himself until it was cool enough to make his sisters scream when he ran chills down their spines. His parents turned up the thermostat with relief and Hakyeon learned not to hug his mother so often lest she catch a cold. The morning of his first day in first grade, he stepped outside coated in frosty wind and excitement.

That winter, the other kids refused to touch him after he froze the slide to better slip down and the teachers had to close it off for the rest of the afternoon as it melted. He spent most of recess lying on the cold, frosty field and letting the sun warm his chilled skin. Sometimes, he sat and watched his classmates play, puffing out laughter in white clouds of steam. No matter how many lungfuls of air he sucked in, his breaths would never be warm like theirs.

\--

On Tuesdays, Hakyeon leaves the shop at four o’clock, letting Sungjae lock up at closing time. Normally, Hakyeon runs a few errands, makes sure to stock his groceries, and enjoys a nice evening to himself. On this particular rainy Tuesday, though, Hakyeon looks out to see a bedraggled figure squatting with their back pressed to the display window, smearing water all over the glass.

“What,” he mutters to himself as he takes off the apron of the day, a cheery pastel blue with a sunflower in the middle. Ten minutes later, he is stepping out of the shop, his bag in one hand and a black umbrella in the other, with a brief "See you tomorrow" aimed at Sungjae.

Taekwoon is still squatting outside, hunched over his wet briefcase dejectedly. He starts at the chimes when Hakyeon closes the door, flicks wet hair out of his eyes, and curls up on himself a little bit more. 

“Taekwoon-sshi?” Hakyeon tries to speak as softly as possible, but the man still flinches. “Taekwoon-sshi, am I right?”

There is a pause as the man meets his questioning gaze with a blank stare, eyes darting between the door and his face. Then, to Hakyeon’s bewilderment, Taekwoon gives a minute shake of the head and drops his eyes.

“I’m sorry, that was supposed to be rhetorical,” Hakyeon stammers. “I know your name from your cousin.”

Taekwoon’s face is impassive, and he gives no sign of having heard. Hakyeon is about to give up and run away before Taekwoon can escape first, but he realizes that the tips of the man’s ears are tinted pink.

 _Oh_ , Hakyeon realizes (a bit gleefully).  _That’s cute_.

He voices that thought aloud before he can help himself. Taekwoon lifts his eyes to look at him incredulously for a moment, before furrowing his face in a pained expression and dropping his head between his knees until Hakyeon can only see his hair. 

“I’m sorry,” Hakyeon rushes to apologize. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I just saw you outside and realized you didn’t have an umbrella.”

There is no reaction, but Taekwoon’s ears have turned a fine shade of red.

“Um, I have an extra,” Hakyeon says slowly. “Would you like to borrow it?”

A minute nod.

“Okay,” Hakyeon hesitates, waiting for Taekwoon to lift his head. Nothing happens. “Okay, I’ll leave it here, then.”

He gingerly sets the umbrella down next to Taekwoon’s feet. It rolls a few inches until it nudges the man’s shoe. Taekwoon doesn’t move to pick it up.

“I’ll see you around,” Hakyeon blurts awkwardly, his voice a little too loud, and shifts between his feet. When Taekwoon gives no sign of intending to respond, he opens his own umbrella and steps into the rain.

\--

“I want to buy flowers.”

Hakyeon looks up from the roses he is trimming.

“Sanghyuk,” he greets the boy, wiping wet hands on his apron. “A gift for someone?”

Sanghyuk presses his lips together and squints at his hands. After a moment, he nods.

“Ooooh,” A slow smile spreads on Hakyeon’s face. “Is it for a family member?”

Sanghyuk glares at him.

“That's cute,” Hakyeon exclaims. Sanghyuk scowls. Hakyeon frowns with disappointment. “Do you know which flower you want?”

Sanghyuk nods quickly, holding out a tiny bouquet of vibrant pansies bound with strands of white lace. Hakyeon has to bite back a coo as the boy coughs and pulls out his wallet.

“Can I know who they’re for?” Hakyeon ventures as he rings up the flowers and a tiny blank card with hearts stamped to the front.

“Hyung, I have something for you,” Sanghyuk says, ignoring his question and opening his messenger bag. 

“Oh?” Hakyeon peers over the counter, his curiosity piqued.

“Taekwoon-hyung said you lent him his umbrella,” Sanghyuk smirks, pulling out a paper bag. 

“Ah, I did.” Hakyeon is only a little disappointed that Taekwoon did not come to return the umbrella himself, but he accepts the bag.

“I gotta go now, hyung,” Sanghyuk tell his, stuffing his wallet into his pocket and grabbing the pansies. “Bye!”

“Wait, Sanghyuk, who are the flowers for?“ Hakyeon tries to ask, but Sanghyuk has already skipped out the door.

He watches the boy cross the street and enter the café before he turns back to the bag. It’s from a stationery store two blocks down, and it seems slightly too heavy for just one umbrella.

Upon opening it, Hakyeon gasps at the stack of sugar cookies attached to a white note beneath the umbrella. The plastic-wrapped cookies are studded with rainbow sprinkles and colorful candies, but Hakyeon reaches for the note first. 

 _Thank you_  is all it says, scribbled in loose handwriting. Below it is a small doodle of what could loosely be interpreted as a flower. The lines are drawn with a heavy hand, leaving clear indents in the paper under the ink, but the thought is uncharacteristically sweet for someone who appears cold and shy. 

Hakyeon folds the paper carefully and tucks it into his apron pocket, smiling to himself.  _Cute_. 

\--

The next day, when Sanghyuk visits, he brings a friend. The man, introduced as Lee Hongbin, is young and extremely handsome. He shows off a pair of deep-set dimples as he smiles at Hakyeon in greeting.

“This is Taekwoon-hyung's roommate,” Sanghyuk says, sporting an impish grin. Hakyeon squawks. “I want to buy something small again.”

“There are a few of Sungjae's miniature bouquets in the back,” Hakyeon points.

“How did you and Hyuk meet?” Hongbin asks.

“Some high schooler turned my glass case into a sheet of candy,” Hakyeon grumbles. “And Sanghyuk didn’t say anything when he saw the kid walk in, even though he knew I was going to get pranked.” He points to the still covered display case. “I haven’t gotten it fixed yet.”

“Oh, those kids,” Hongbin laughs. “Can I see it?”

Hakyeon nods, walking around the counter to pull away the cloth covering the remaining shards of candy.

Hongbin leans in close to inspect the jagged edges of glass, reaching a finger out to poke a particularly large piece.

“Careful,” Hakyeon starts, but Hongbin has already flinched and jerked his hand away. “It’s still sharp, even though it’s candy. I’ll get the first aid kit.” He pauses, turning back, worrying his lip with his teeth. “Is it bleeding a lot? Do I need to get gauze?”

“It’s small.” Hongbin holds out his finger.

Hakyeon blinks in surprise as he inspects the cut. Instead of blood, tiny beads of gold have begun to well out of the split in the pad of Hongbin’s finger.

“Oops, sorry,” Hongbin pulls back a little. “Forgot about that. It's my curse.”

“Is it gold?” Hakyeon stares as the pool of metallic liquid grows and begins to drip down his finger, its consistency similar to blood.

“It’s not,” Hongbin laughs. “People have compared it to ichor before. Pretty, isn’t it?”

“Don’t forget to clean it with alcohol, hyung,” Sanghyuk pipes, not taking his eyes away from the bundles of flowers in his hands. He chews his lip, looking between the lilies and the daisies.

“Does it have special properties?” Hakyeon asks, holding out a cotton ball soaked in disinfectant. 

“Nope,” Hongbin shakes his head. “I just have to be careful about getting hurt or sick. Can’t really get a blood transfusion anywhere.”

“Oh,” Hakyeon hums sympathetically, digging in the first aid box for a band-aid. “That must be a lot of trouble for you.”

“It's not that bad," Hongbin says. "I'm pretty cautious, and my job is basically risk-free. My parents still worry, though."

Hakyeon swallows.  _Make friends_. He extends an adhesive with a sympathetic smile once Hongbin finishes dabbing at the cut. "Mine were the same when I moved out."

Hongbin glances between him and Sanghyuk. "You went to high school and university outside the city, right? Why didn't you finish your education here?"

"I wanted to be a dancer." Hakyeon purses his lips. "I had big dreams."

"You came back though," Hongbin observes, his tone questioning.

Hakyeon chews his lip. "I decided to major in biology after a back injury my junior year of high school. But mostly, I couldn't get used to it." He forces a laugh, "So I came back."

"What's it like?" Sanghyuk asks, his voice quiet. He has come to lean against the counter, the lilies dangling in his hand. "The outside?"

Hakyeon recognizes the guileless curiosity in the way Sanghyuk's eyes widen expectantly, and something bitter climbs up the back of his throat. He swallows it back.

Casting his eyes down, he shrugs as nonchalantly as he can. "It's normal."

It isn't the answer Sanghyuk is looking for, but Hakyeon cannot bear to crush the boy with his own disappointments.

"Let's ring that up for you." Hakyeon snatches at the lilies, and the conversation is over.

\--

Hakyeon visits the walls on his next day off. They are a mere five minutes' walk from his oldest sister's house in the suburbs, a constant looming presence in the view from their front yard. Now, standing at the edge of the most isolated city in the world, he feels a little less suffocated by the dream-like vestiges of his childhood home.

His peers had stopped living normally such a long time ago, and they have no idea normal means something else outside the walls. His family and their neighbors are nice enough, but he barely knows most of them after such a long separation. His mind wanders to the musty box of polaroids and flowers pressed paper-thin stuffed into crinkled envelopes. He knows he won’t have the courage to open it by the time he gets home, so he doesn’t move.

He steps out the empty gate, nodding at the officer staring at him curiously. Turning right outside the gate, he walks until he is far enough from the officer to pretend he’s not still watching. He leans against the wall and looks up into the gray clouds muffling the midday sun. Against his better judgment, he pulls a packet of cigarettes out from his coat, fitting one between his lips with a resigned sigh.

It’s a bad habit he had picked up in college, but it seems out of place here, standing in the vast emptiness between the two infinite concrete walls. Still, he exhales and admires the white smoke that leaks from his mouth and nostrils, swirling in the chilly October air. He takes a few more absent drags before a car comes rolling up to the gate. The engine sputters and spits, loud in the thick silence of the wall, and breaks Hakyeon out of his daze.

As the car passes through and fades to a whispering growl, Hakyeon begins to chuckle at the ridiculousness of the situation. Here he is, standing outside a city overflowing with magic and the supernatural, pretending to exhale warm air. He stubs the glowing red tip of the cigarette with his shoe, taking deep breaths until the puffs of white fade from his mouth.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hakyeon eats cake and plays detective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for descriptions of injury (broken bones) in the first chapter

The first time Taekwoon broke a bone, he fell out of a tree house just a few months shy of his sixth birthday.

Sanghyuk was learning to walk already, and Taekwoon’s mother was never at home, always out helping her sister with the rambunctious baby. Taekwoon’s older sisters had school, and his father was always clicking away at his laptop in the kitchen, so he was left to amuse himself in the tree house.

It was tiny and low to the ground, but Taekwoon relished climbing the rough rungs of the rope ladder and tracing the dark wood grain with chubby fingers. Sometimes, when he wanted to cry (or worse, sing), he sat in the tree house with his head between his knees, sucking on his knuckles and choking back his voice.

Thus, one day, after a particularly entertaining session of playing trains in the small structure, he stepped down at the wrong angle, caught his foot on the ladder, and came crashing down into the unforgiving ground, twisting his small arm at an unnatural angle. He screamed at the top of his lungs for the first time since he turned five.

His father was paralyzed in the kitchen and couldn’t come out until he stopped wailing fifteen minutes later.

The second time Taekwoon broke a bone, he was already a big boy in his last year of elementary school. He held Sanghyuk’s hand every morning, not letting go until they reached his first grade classroom.

Taekwoon hardly spoke to Sanghyuk (he hardly spoke to anyone), but the tiny child looked up at him with sparkling eyes anyway, running after him in velcro shoes and chirping “Woonie-hyung” with his clumsy baby tongue.

The day of Sanghyuk's fifth birthday, Taekwoon’s family drove to his house to celebrate the occasion with a big cake and party poppers. When the door opened, the birthday boy barreled out, grinning and shouting at the top of his lungs.

Taekwoon faintly registered a crunching sound as he toppled over with Sanghyuk’s arms around him. Later on, in the emergency room, the doctor told him he had two fractured ribs, a broken wrist, and a chipped tooth from knocking his head on his aunt’s cobblestone walkway.

Sanghyuk had sat at the edge of his hospital bed and cried, clutching the metal railing so hard he left a dent in the shape of his small palm. He was inconsolable until Taekwoon got his cast off a month later.

\--

Sanghyuk has taken to helping Hakyeon unload his morning deliveries. The boy can easily heft heavy boxes from the back door to the storeroom four at a time. In return, Hakyeon grants him a discount off the flowers he buys on a weekly basis.

"Who are you giving flowers to every week?" Hakyeon asks, offhand, as he cuts and cleans a pile of tulips with Sungjae. Hongbin snickers from the stool next to the counter, having walked with Sanghyuk from his apartment for his morning shift at the university library.

Sanghyuk just lays his head down on the counter with a moody jut of his lip.

"They're obviously for someone you like," Hakyeon tells him. When Sanghyuk starts, he rolls his eyes. "You chose a ribbon with pink hearts last week, remember? Did they like it?"

Sanghyuk scowls and shrugs, picking at the seam in his jeans.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Hakyeon groans. "I'm going to stop selling to you if they just throw the flowers away every week. I take pride in my work, you know."

"I don't know," Sanghyuk says in a small voice.

"What?"

"I just drop them off and leave."

"Wait." A thought occurs to Hakyeon. "Does the recipient actually know you're the sender?"

Guilt flashes across Sanghyuk's face. Hongbin bursts into laughter.

Hakyeon purses his lips. "Sanghyuk, if you're having trouble with this whole thing you know—"

"I want those today," Sanghyuk cuts him off, pointing at a bundle of violets Hakyeon has just finished trimming. Hongbin just laughs harder.

Hakyeon sighs and busies himself snipping lengths of pale heather ribbon to tie a handful of the violets to a tiny blue note. "You know, Sanghyuk, I really want to know what your cousin's voice sounds like."

"Taekwoon-hyung?" Sanghyuk raises an eyebrow. "He doesn't sing in public."

"Singing?" Hakyeon frowns. "I meant his speaking voice, though. Does he sing?"

"Not really." Sanghyuk glances at Hongbin. "Why do you want to hear him speak?"

"He keeps running away every time I try to talk with him," Hakyeon sighs. "I'm just curious, is all."

“That sounds dumb,” Hongbin snickers.

“Taekwoon-hyung will hate you forever if you accidentally embarrass him in public,” Sanghyuk says solemnly. Hakyeon can't tell if Sanghyuk means that Taekwoon hates him or that he thinks talking to Hakyeon is embarrassing.

“What?” Hakyeon scoffs in disbelief. “Fine, then you tell me what  _you_  would do to make Taekwoon speak.”

“I’ve heard him speak before,” Sanghyuk shrugs. “It’s not that great.”

“I don’t need to make up some elaborate plan,” Hongbin smirks. “I speak to him on a regular basis.”

Hakyeon closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "No—as in if you were me."

They both pause.

"I dunno, eavesdrop or something?" Sanghyuk finally says.

In short, the two of them are no help at all.

Somehow, Hakyeon finds himself sitting in the Rosebud Café at five o’clock on a Tuesday evening, staring out the window absently and ignoring Jaehwan’s amused stares. Hakyeon had swallowed his shame earlier and asked the barista what time Taekwoon would come. He hunches over a little more as he feels Jaehwan’s gaze on his back. He picks at a slice of chocolate ganache courtesy of the pastry chef Wonsik’s pity. Somehow, Hakyeon is not surprised Hongbin's boyfriend has heard of this stupid, frankly desperate idea hatched by Sanghyuk's lukewarm sympathy.

Luckily, a new rush of orders soon calls Jaehwan’s attention away from Hakyeon’s seat, which is situated in a darker corner opposite the register so he can keep an eye on both the door and the bar. A sketchbook and a pile of markers and pens decorate the table so he can pretend to brainstorm bouquet orders in a pinch. 

About halfway through his third hour of waiting, Hakyeon is rewarded by a brief glimpse of rosy cheeks tucked into a large gray scarf and wind-blown black hair. Today, Taekwoon’s broad frame is wrapped in a large coat that dusts his knees, his imposing figure contrasting with the softness of his fuzzy scarf.

“Be patient,” Hakyeon murmurs to himself, picking up a pen and training his eyes on his notebook.

People may call him pushy, but before anything else, Cha Hakyeon is shrewd, and he knows it. He didn’t inherit the family business at the tender age of twenty-five for nothing, and he knows how to bide his time and wait for something he wants. He sits, unmoving and unobtrusive, in his seat and keeps an ear open for the interaction that is about to take place.

Taekwoon ignores the open tables, striding towards the register, as Jaehwan had said he would do. On weekdays, when he gets off work late, he prefers not to linger at the shop and always ordered a coffee to go.

“Hi, hyung,” Jaehwan greets him with a strident voice.

Taekwoon flinches, electing not to reply.

“How are you today?” Jaehwan attempts.

Taekwoon shrugs.

“Busy with the project?” Jaehwan continues smoothly. 

Taekwoon nods.

And thus, the one-sided exchange continues for a minute or two. Jaehwan leans on the counter and asks questions to which Taekwoon answers with a nod, shrug, or shake of the head.

That’s fine. Taekwoon’s refusal to engage in conversation with the outspoken barista is all within Hakyeon’s calculations. He had not expected the man to reciprocate Jaehwan’s chatter, and he lets the talking dwindle before pricking his ears again.

“So, hyung, what’ll you have today?” Jaehwan starts out casually, grabbing an empty cup and a sharpie.

And then something that Hakyeon had not predicted happens.

“Your usual?” Jaehwan asks.

What.

Taekwoon nods.

Jaehwan scribbles on the cup and sets it aside. He rings up Taekwoon’s order and rummages in the register for his change.

Hakyeon wants to cry.

Of course Jaehwan knows Taekwoon’s order by now; the man has been coming to the coffee shop for years. Thus, Taekwoon has no reason to say his order aloud, and he can get away with not speaking a word whenever he stops by to get coffee.

Then, another thought occurs to him: Sanghyuk  _knew_  this would happen.

Wonsik sends out another slice of pity ganache when Taekwoon leaves.

Hakyeon packs his markers after he finishes eating, returning to the flower shop to string up lights for the approaching holiday season. In a moody fit, he dismisses Sungjae an hour early and mopes alone behind the counter until closing time.

The string lights are in the storeroom, covered in a layer of collected dust since the previous year. Hakyeon makes a mental note to ask Sungjae to start sweeping the storeroom too when he spots some of the dust bunnies on the shelves. Surveying the boxes with hands on his hips, he decides to start with the tiny white LEDs, moving on to the larger multicolored bulbs next, and finish with the delicate snowflake ones that go up in the storefront windows. He’s sitting on a ladder with a snowflake in each hand when the coffee shop closes two hours later.

The employees filter out one by one, huffing white clouds into cupped hands, until the last one emerges, stopping to lock up the shop. Hakyeon sits back and stretches, watching the man turn so his familiar profile, with a high nose and coiffed hair, is visible. His eyes hone in on the small package Jaehwan tucks into the crook of his arm as he stuffs his hands in his coat pockets.

It’s a small bundle of violets tied, with heather ribbon, to a square of blue card stock. In fact, Hakyeon recognizes it as the very one he had sold to a regular customer of his earlier that day.

The next Tuesday, Hakyeon leaves work a man with a purpose.

\--

Hakyeon has begun sitting in the coffee shop every Tuesday afternoon.

Taekwoon first spots the man bent over a sketchbook through the window on a particularly windy day. He briefly considers abandoning his daily coffee fix and running home, but his toes are numb and he refused to let a florist with nice eyes and fluffy purple hair scare him away from  _his_ regular café.

He marches (lightly, of course) through the door and straight to the register, wallet in hand. After allowing Jaehwan to ramble for a bit, he shoves his money, with exact change, at the barista's chest.

When Jaehwan hands him his drink, Taekwoon flicks his eyes to Hakyeon as casually as he can and cocks an eyebrow. Instead of the usual rambling, though, Jaehwan just shrugs.

Taekwoon stares, but Jaehwan’s face is unreadable for once.

He glances at the man again, but he is still engrossed in tracing something with a green marker.  _Maybe he’s just taking a break from work_ , Taekwoon reasons as he sips on his coffee, using his back to push open the door.

Except, he’s there again the week after, and the week after that.

Every Tuesday, Hakyeon sits at the same table by the window, picking at a different slice of cake, and draws in his sketchpad. He never looks up from his drawings, so Taekwoon thinks nothing more of the man’s sudden regular appearances in the shop for a while, until the unthinkable happens on a Tuesday evening in the last week of October.

Today, both baristas are behind the bar, which rarely happens in the coffee shop. However, as Jaehwan claims, he is about to clock out, and Junghwan came early, so for the next few minutes, Jaehwan would man the register and Junghwan would make the coffee. As usual, Jaehwan prattles on for a bit about his day, the weather, and other insignificant happenings that he always feels the need to vocalize. Then, “Your usual?” and Taekwoon can finally pay, grab his coffee, and leave.

His hand is on the door when he takes his first sip, freezes, and doubles back.

He waits at the bar until Junghwan finishes the drink he’s working on and notices him hovering.

“Ah, hyung, how can I help you?”

“I ordered vanilla, but you put hazelnut,” Taekwoon tells him, trying not to sound accusatory.

He would not have noticed anything wrong, except for two small details. He may seem quiet and uninterested, but above all, Jung Taekwoon is observant. After three years working as an editor for a fashion magazine, he has learned the importance of attention to detail.

Thus, before Junghwan takes back his cup, Taekwoon has already noticed that the order on the side—written by Jaehwan, who has been recording and making his same order five days a week for over a year—says, in plain and deliberate script,  _hazelnut_.

Secondly, and more importantly, the moment Junghwan takes back the latté, something clatters behind them, and Taekwoon sees Hakyeon bending to retrieve his upended sketchbook from the ground.

He squints, glancing between the flustered florist and the now empty register.

Something is up.

Taekwoon doesn’t happen upon the third clue for another week and a half.

The Thursday of the second week of November, Taekwoon stays late at work to finalize plans for the cover shoot for next month’s issue. He and Eunkwang, the writer for the corresponding twelve-page feature, end up finishing six cans of coffee together before they leave the company building at ten.

The café is open until eleven on weeknights, but for once, Taekwoon is too tired to stop by for his regular order, so he takes the bus straight home.

“Welcome back,” Hongbin greets him as he sheds his coat and dusts flakes of snow out of his hair. He sits with his legs neatly folded in front of him, his back against the armrest of their couch and a book propped on his knees. “Were you at work?”

Taekwoon nods, rubbing at his sore eyes. “The cover shoot is in two days.”

“Have you been staying late all week?" 

Taekwoon nods.

“Hm.” Hongbin turns back to the book in his hand. “Have you spoken to Jaehwan-hyung lately?” 

“I see him every day at the café,” Taekwoon reminds him. “Do we have leftovers?”

“Yeah, they’re in the fridge. You always  _see_  Jaehwan-hyung, but when was the last time you  _talked_  to him?" 

The question strikes Taekwoon as oddly specific. How is he supposed to remember the last time Jaehwan said something worthy of a response? He pops a bowl of kimchi fried rice into the microwave and leans on the counter, staring at the couch and the side of Hongbin’s head. “I don’t remember. Why?”

“No reason,” Hongbin shrugs, and the movement is just the tiniest bit too casual.

Taekwoon blinks as the microwave beeps. He waits at the doorframe until Hongbin flips his page, then moves back to retrieve his heated rice and muse over the short exchange.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hakyeon makes progress and Taekwoon refuses to drink canned coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for smoking in the first scene (it's implied and pretty brief but just in case)

Taekwoon sees Hakyeon a total of four times more times before work picks up for the holiday season.

He doesn’t dare look in the window of the flower shop when he passes by in the mornings, fearing he will make eye contact with the handsome florist and collapse into a stuttering mess or worse, run away again. When he nears the shop, he makes sure to walk as quickly as he can, eyes fixed in front, even when he can hear Hakyeon humming from the inside.

Twice, when he walks by, Hakyeon is squatting outside arranging pails of flowers, his puppy running circles around him. Both times, he greets Taekwoon with a smile that makes Taekwoon’s cheeks burn. The second time, he says, “Good morning, Taekwoon-sshi” and Taekwoon almost drops his briefcase scrambling to the corner. Only when he slows down, sucking in painfully cold breaths, does he see Jaehwan clutching his gut and laughing from where he is wiping down the outdoor tables across the street. Taekwoon doesn't dare look back to see Hakyeon's reaction.

The third time, Taekwoon is sitting in one of the window seats of the coffee shop on a Saturday morning, sipping a latte and half-heartedly skimming a novel Hongbin had recommended, when a flash of purple across the street catches his eye. Keeping his book level, Taekwoon watches Hakyeon’s graceful figure as he walks around the side of the building, one hand stuffed into his apron pocket. His lips are drawn down, and his shoulders are stiff as he disappears around the corner.

A few minutes later, he steps out, his apron slung over his shoulder, and stretches wide. He's not smiling, but the line of his back is much more relaxed as he exhales white clouds and brings his hands down. Taekwoon stares, transfixed, as he loops the apron back over his head and trudges back into the shop.

And then, on the Tuesday of the third week of the month, Taekwoon enters the coffee shop with purpose in his step.

As always, Hakyeon is sitting at the window with a half-eaten slice of cake, practically glowing in the winter sunlight as he colors busily. He barely glances up as Taekwoon enters. Likewise, Taekwoon does not spare him a glance as he walks to the counter. Taekwoon feels the indignation welling up despite himself. How dare this man try to fluster him in  _his_  café.

“Hyung!” Jaehwan chirps when he spots Taekwoon, launching into another rambling soliloquy.

Just as the chatter is about to die off, Taekwoon leans his side into the counter so his body is open to the window. He continues to stare at Jaehwan, but he keeps the florist in the corner of his eye.

“I’m going to be busy with work for a while,” Taekwoon cuts off Jaehwan mid-sentence in a voice just loud enough to carry. “But I want to play again when we’re done with the December issue. When is the piano free?”

Hakyeon flinches, fumbling with his pens, before resuming coloring.  _Aha!_

Taekwoon pushes down the urge to punch the air as he glances towards the window to make sure Hakyeon is still staring at his sketchbook. Jaehwan’s eyes widen by a fraction. He tilts his head, looking back and forth between Taekwoon and Hakyeon.

“Anytime you want,” he says, a slow grin spreading on his face. “So, your usual order?”

When Jaehwan hands him his vanilla latté, Taekwoon gives him a pointed glare. The message is short and sweet:  _Don’t tell him I figured it out_. _I know where you live_.

Jaehwan gulps and nods.

Taekwoon smiles, satisfied.

\--

Hakyeon learns two more things about Taekwoon the second time he hears his voice. They are as follows:

  1. Taekwoon plays the piano, and he plays semi-regularly at the coffee shop.
  2. Taekwoon has somehow figured out why Hakyeon has been coming on Tuesdays.



The first part surprises Hakyeon. He knows that Taekwoon enjoys listening to music; the man often arrives to the café with black headphones stuffed into his ears. However, Hakyeon has never heard the man sing or even hum a single note, let alone display any indication of passion for music. He is so intensely shy, Hakyeon can barely imagine him sitting and playing a piano in the middle of a crowded coffee shop. When he really looks, though, Taekwoon's fingers are long and graceful gripping the to-go cup, pale and elegant with pronounced knuckles and neat nails befitting a pianist. Hakyeon imagines his palms are smooth and soft to touch. He catches himself glazing over slightly as he imagines Taekwoon bringing the cup to his lips and the tendons in his hands shift, drawing attention to thick silver rings on his pinky and forefinger.

The second part, though, is puzzling. Taekwoon hadn't been annoyed or creeped out. Hakyeon would rather not admit it, but he has been borderline stalking the man the past few weeks and most people did not react so well to the idea of a stranger constantly eavesdropping on their conversations. Instead, Taekwoon had  _teased_  him. Hakyeon feels an itch of irritation under his skin, but the sentiment is overpowered by his elation at hearing Taekwoon's voice again. It had been louder this time, as Taekwoon had intentionally projected so Hakyeon could hear it over the general chatter in the room. And then Taekwoon had threatened Jaehwan into silence, clearly intending to keep the upper hand in this game (when had it become a game?). 

 _He's stubborn_ , Hakyeon had realized as he watched Taekwoon allow himself a small, triumphant smile into his coffee. And then,  _That's kind of cute_.

It’s a good thing Hakyeon guards another piece of information that interests Jaehwan more than his personal safety.

Thus, Hakyeon finds himself sitting under Jaehwan’s piercing gaze just an hour later, sipping on a cup of tea.

“Well?” Jaehwan says impatiently. “My break’s almost up. Give me my second hint. It’d better be more specific than ‘he’s a man’ this time.”

“Alright, let me think,” Hakyeon holds up his hand. Sanghyuk would be angry if Jaehwan actually figured it out, and Hakyeon doesn’t want to expose him if he isn’t ready to tell Jaehwan. It would be insensitive, not to mention he likes the boy, even if he’s obnoxious sometimes. “He’s someone you know.”

Jaehwan groans, “Are you serious?”

“It could’ve just been a random stranger,” Hakyeon shrugs. “Also, you didn’t tell me that Taekwoon played the piano.”

“It’s his hobby. He keeps a smaller one at home that an old friend of ours did some cursework on. Apparently—according to Hongbin, at least—the sound quality’s amazing.” Jaehwan leans his face in his hands, glancing at the piano in the café. "You should ask him about it sometime." He catches Hakyeon's glare and shrugs apologetically. "It's not my story to tell."

Hakyeon frowns, but stops pressing. “He plays a lot here, too?”

“Not recently,” Jaehwan shakes his head, sighing. “Too busy at work. Editing for a magazine always gets hectic around this time. Now's about the time he starts working too late to get coffee in the evenings. He’ll probably start again once they send off the holiday issue.”

“It’s the same for the shop,” Hakyeon clicks his tongue sympathetically. "You should've seen how fast the first order of poinsettias disappeared."

“Is it okay to leave Sungjae alone, then?” Jaehwan peers out the window.

“Actually, I wasn't planning on coming in today,” Hakyeon sighs. “But he insisted. Nice kid." Hakyeon glances at his watch and downs the last mouthful of tea. "I'm probably not going to come around for the next few weeks. Everyone tries to buy stationery or flowers at the last minute when they can’t find other gifts.”

“I’m going to be lonely, hyung,” Jaehwan moans, letting his head drop to the table.

"I'm right across the street," Hakyeon points out.

“I want to know who my admirer is," Jaehwan pouts. Hakyeon laughs at his baleful expression.

"Speaking of," Hakyeon shifts his eyes to gaze past Jaehwan. "Here comes a delivery."

Wonsik stumbles to the table, face bright red, and drops a bundle of peonies onto the table. "F-from your—"

"I know it's from my secret admirer, Wonsik," Jaehwan pouts, "Tell me who he is?"

"I promised not to tell, hyung," Wonsik squeaks.

"You  _what_?" Jaehwan demands. "What the fuck? Whose side are you on?"

"I felt bad," Wonsik wails. "He looked so sad and hopeful, like a puppy. You know I can't resist it when—"

He cuts himself off and claps a hand over his mouth.

 _Oh Sanghyuk_ , Hakyeon thinks as he watches Jaehwan eyeball Wonsik.  _You chose the wrong delivery boy_.

\--

Taekwoon is feeling decidedly worse for wear the afternoon of the cover shoot for the December issue, better knows as the "hell-iday" issue by the editorial department. This year, they had decided on a simple backdrop of white cotton snow and bright ornaments framing a trio of beaming models. Taekwoon had thought the concept a bit generic but it was all about "the festive spirit of the holidays, you boring old man!" according to Eunkwang, another one of the sub-editors in the fashion department, and Taekwoon had been too tired to argue much. Taekwoon can feel himself nodding off after four consecutive days of forgoing his daily coffee fixes to grind away at an article on the virtues of cable-knit sweaters until the last bus.

He jerks as a hand descends onto his shoulder. Eunkwang peers at him, concerned.

“Are you okay?”

“Ah, sorry,” Taekwoon scrubs at his face. Flicking back his fringe, he squints at the bright lights in the middle of the floor that illuminate the models. The brilliant white pierces his eyes straight into his skull. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Eunkwang purses his lips. “You seem really tired, though. Do you need to take a nap? I’ll get you if something comes up.”

“That’s okay,” Taekwoon yawns. “I just haven’t been drinking as much coffee lately.” It's more than that. Taekwoon's fingers itch and his throat feels clogged and thick, but no phlegm comes up when he coughs. He clenches his fists and swallows hard.

“There are plenty of vending machines here,” Eunkwang remarks.

“Yeah, but canned coffee is shit,” Taekwoon mutters a bit petulantly. “I don’t want to drink it anymore.”

“Okay,” Eunkwang shrugs. “You go to a place near downtown, right? Did they close?”

Taekwoon shakes his head. “I’ve been too busy to stop by.”

“Ah,” Eunkwang hums sympathetically. “It’s Friday. Just hang in there a few more hours.” They both know they'll end up coming in on the weekend to finalize the formatting of some article because the art team wants to replace a photo or something, but Taekwoon grunts gratefully at the encouragement.

The shoot ends up taking three hours longer than expected. There’s something wrong with the ornaments, the photographer gets angry, and one of the models cries. Eunkwang has to tell him seven times to stop frowning so much, which is five more than usual. On the last occasion, a stylist bursts into tears before Taekwoon can fix a smile on his face. It takes twenty minutes of Eunkwang's most winning grin to persuade the poor woman to look Taekwoon in the eye again as he bites out a bland apology. When the crew finally begins taking down the lighting, Taekwoon wants to either throw up or curl into a ball and sleep. He barely registers the calls of "good work" and "thank you"s as he leaves to pick up his briefcase from his office.

He rides the bus straight home, resting his head on the window so the thrum of the engine can drown out the nauseous pulse in his chest. When he gets back, he makes himself a sandwich and leaves another one in the refrigerator for Hongbin, who is working a late shift at the library. Walking through the living room, he pauses and stares at the piano in the corner. He's dead on his feet and the clock reads 11:03 already, but Taekwoon is alone at home for once.

He closes all the windows, checks the door is locked, and clicks his fingers to activate the soundproofing spells Yoseob had installed a long time ago. Then, with loving fingers, he carefully drags the embroidered drape off the piano, flapping it to shake off the dust. He lifts the cover, sitting down and dragging his fingers along polished keys, and carefully plays a few notes, smiling softly to himself. Then, in the empty, soundproof (and therefore safe) living room, he opens his mouth and sings.

\--

Taekwoon was quiet as a child. The youngest of three children, he was raised to be well behaved and polite, somber and thoughtful. He sang often, but almost never in the presence of other people. Thus, it had taken a few days of nervous waiting for his parents to discover his curse.

The morning of his fifth birthday, he woke up and imagined he was staring a whole new world in the face. He fancied could see new patterns in the plaster of his white painted ceiling, new possibilities. He hopped out of bed and lifted his arms, fancying he would lift off, but he feet stayed firmly on the ground. After brushing his teeth, washing his face, eating breakfast, and spending half the day at preschool playing trains, he realized with a little disappointment that nothing much had seemed to change.

That afternoon, after his parents had picked him up from school, he dirtied his knees with grass and dirt stains as he watched birds flit around the trees in their backyard. He had been humming absently, picking at blades of grass, when the bird fell with a soft thump onto the ground next to his foot.

He had pulled his father outside with panicked tugs, but the bird was gone by the time they reached the spot it had landed.

“There’s nothing here, son,” his father said gently as Taekwoon fretted at the hem of his shirt. “You must have mistaken it for something else.”

The mystery ended three days later when his oldest sister jumped out from behind a doorway and play-tackled him into the living room. She froze in place as he yelled in surprise, falling to the ground with a pained wince in her eyes. The paralysis only lasted a moment, but a moment was all it took for her to bang her shin on the coffee table, leaving a nasty bruise for days.

After that, Taekwoon stopped singing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sanghyuk schemes and Taekwoon eats free food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for smoking in the last scene

Taekwoon resumes his visits to the Rosebud Café after the holiday issue is submitted for printing. The café has switched its festive decor and its menu has transitioned to eggnogs and winter spices. On Tuesday, the window seat is empty.

“He’s busy with work,” Jaehwan tells him when he steps up to the register. “Holiday season. Lots of people buy flowers as last-minute gifts."

"Oh." Taekwoon fiddles with his briefcase. "Okay."

Jaehwan raises an eyebrow. "You could just visit him across the street, you know.”

Taekwoon balks.

"I thought as much," Jaehwan sighs. “Anyway, coffee’s on the house, et cetera. You can start whenever you want.”

Playing at the café is fulfilling in a way that playing at home is not. Of course, here, he can never dream of opening his mouth as his fingers fly across scales and chord progressions, but there is an intensely satisfying quality to the attention he receives from the patrons.

Wonsik drops by with a plate of iced cream puffs when he takes a break mid-afternoon.

“Sorry Hakyeon-hyung’s not here,” he says.

Taekwoon chews and swallows, eyeing the pastry chef suspiciously. “Why?”

“You were looking forward to seeing him.” Wonsik says it like a statement, leaving Taekwoon no room for denial. “He’s always hanging around chatting with Jaehwan-hyung. Too bad he got busy just when you were free enough to come again.”

“He chats with Jaehwan?” Taekwoon blurts despite himself.

“He and Jaehwan-hyung never stop.” Wonsik rolls his eyes at his. “He chats so much. He just keeps talking and talking.”

Taekwoon can’t imagine chatting with Hakyeon. Would he smile a lot? Maybe even laugh? It would probably be similar to staring straight at the sun.

“I can go over and ask him to come in for a little bit, if you want.”

Taekwoon shakes his head stubbornly, quashing down the rebellious  _Yes_  that flashes through his mind.

\--

 Hakyeon is ready for the day to be over.

He is ready to go back upstairs and collapse on his bed and sleep like the dead. He wants to lay his head down on his shiny new display case and moan, butthere is still one more hour before closing time and he is too busy trimming bundles of poinsettias for last-minute hackneyed holiday gifts.

“Hyung?”

He jumps.

“Oh, Sanghyuk,” he says weakly, putting a hand over his heart. The boy places a steaming to-go cup from the café on the counter.  “Were you across the street earlier?”

He nods. “Taekwoon-hyung’s been playing all afternoon, so I came in to listen.”

“Playing the piano?”

“Yeah. He’s really good.”

Hakyeon sighs. “And here I am, stuck behind the counter.”

“Anyway, that’s a delivery for you from Jaehwan-hyung,” Sanghyuk points at the coffee. “He told me to tell you that he misses gossiping with you.” Sanghyuk cuts his eyes away, frowning.

Hakyeon snorts. “Gossiping, sure,” he mutters, bringing the cup to his lips. The coffee is hot, and he flinches as it sears his mouth. “Ow.”

“So you guys gossip regularly.” Sanghyuk leans on his elbows.

“I guess, something like that. Jaehwan talks a lot.”

Sanghyuk hums. “About?”

“Just,” Hakyeon shrugs, taking a slow sip. “you know. Stuff.”

“Stuff,” Sanghyuk repeats. “Stuff like my flowers?”

Hakyeon chokes.

Sanghyuk waits patiently for him to stop coughing. “You know, hyung, I didn’t know you’d be heartless enough to sell me out. Just so you can hear Taekwoon-hyung speak like, two words.”

“Sanghyuk, that’s a bit much of you to say, don’t you think,” Hakyeon starts, but he is already crumbling under Sanghyuk’s blatantly put-on puppy eyes. “I didn’t tell him anything really useful,” he finishes weakly, “How did you hear?”

“Wonsik-hyung, of course,” Sanghyuk smirks. He hadn’t chosen the wrong delivery boy at all, Hakyeon realizes, too late.

“What do you want from me?” Hakyeon laments, resigned. “A discount? Free food? A favor?”

Instead of jumping to answer, Sanghyuk’s expression shutters.

“Um,” he starts tentatively. “Hyung, I actually wanted to talk to you about something.”

Hakyeon’s stomach drops. “I know,” he says before he can stop himself.

“You do?” Sanghyuk looks surprised.

“Yes.” He knows, because he sees the keen curiosity that glows from Sanghyuk’s expectant stare. He recognizes the eagerness of his posture, both palms laid down on the counter as he leans forward, brimming with questions. “You’re planning on leaving the city, and you want to know what it’s like.”

“How is it outside? Is it different?”

“Yes.” Sanghyuk’s face falls, and Hakyeon knows he wanted the answer to be no. He swallows the bitter lump growing in his throat. “I came back because it was too hard to fit in.”  _You were too weak_ , his mind supplies, but he can’t bear to voice that particular thought aloud yet. “It’s not easy. You have to hold back, act normal, and pretend you don’t see people’s fear and animosity when they realize you’re different.”

 _Weak_ , his mind echoes over and over as he glances at Sanghyuk, softening at the dejection in his young face.  _You were too weak_. “Just, think about it carefully, okay? I’m not going to tell you it’ll be easy, but that doesn’t mean you should give up.” He doesn’t mean to step all over Sanghyuk’s aspirations; he  _can’t_.

Sanghyuk fiddles with a scrap of white lace, blinking hard.

“You’re thinking about transferring schools, right?” Hakyeon says in a more forgiving tone, wincing as Sanghyuk jerks. “Did you apply anywhere?”

Later, when Sanghyuk leaves, Hakyeon digs out one more sigh from deep in his chest. Then, the chimes above the door ring again, signaling more customers. He pastes the smile back on his face, even when all he wants to do is fall in his bed upstairs and forget the incessant throb of his own voice in his head.

\--

“Sure you don’t wanna hang out at my place?” Jaehwan hops from foot to foot, huffing into his cupped palms for warmth. The café keys jingle in his hand as he waves goodbye to his coworkers.

Taekwoon shakes his head. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“You won’t be.” Jaehwan eyes him, frowning. “It’s just me, Jin, and Junghwan.”

Taekwoon shakes his head again. He’s tired and filled with something unsettling that he can’t quite describe. After five hours playing in the café, he’s ready to go home and doze on the couch with his earbuds stuffed in. For once, Hongbin is over at Wonsik’s place for their Christmas date.

“Okay, then.” Jaehwan shrugs. “If you’re okay with that.”

He doesn’t know if he wants to be alone, but he can’t bear the company of Jaehwan and his roommates right now.

Melancholy, Taekwoon decides. He feels melancholy.

They part ways at the crosswalk, and Taekwoon watches the green glow of the stoplight reflecting off of Jaehwan’s light hair until he disappears around the bend. The emptiness lends a surreal air to the skid of Taekwoon’s soles over the icy road, the pricks of cold snowflakes melting into his hair, and the lazy curl of smoke from the alley across the street.

Wait—smoke?

Taekwoon ventures closer to the alley, his heartbeat picking up as he readies himself to pound on Hakyeon’s door if he spots any sign of a fire.

There is no fire. Instead, there is Hakyeon, alone, the line of his spine elegant even as he slumps against the wall. Bizarrely, he is wearing nothing but a lightly creased dress shirt, but there is nothing in his stance—no shivering or even hunching—that indicates he feels the cold. The smoke is coming from his hand, where he is holding a lit cigarette. As Taekwoon watches, he fits it in his mouth, the burning tip lighting up as he inhales, and releases the smoke in a heavy sigh.

And then Hakyeon shifts, bringing his head up and meeting Taekwoon’s eyes.

“Oh.” Hakyeon freezes, the cigarette midway to his lips. Taekwoon can see him contemplate bringing it all the way up for another drag, but he drops his arm in the end.

Taekwoon always thinks twice before he speaks. He is careful—oh so careful—when it comes to using his voice. He has thought about opening his mouth in this moment for two months, maybe longer. So he takes a step forward and does just that.

“Good evening.”

Hakyeon’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second, and then they crinkle as he flashes a tired but brilliant grin. “Good evening. I heard you were playing at the café today.”

Taekwoon shifts and nods. “It's late. Are you locking up?”

Hakyeon looks down at the glowing tip of the cigarette still pinched in his fingers. Taekwoon’s eyes rove over the stretch of his lips, flashing hints of pearly teeth, and his golden skin, smooth and dusted with a faint flush, before settling on his dark eyes, framed with thick lashes and strong brows. “Not quite. Just cooling down.”

“It’s—” Taekwoon glances at the flutter of Hakyeon’s shirt as a gust of wind blows through, ruffling his hair. Now that he is closer, he can see the dust of snowflakes on his shoulders and the crown of his head, pricks of white that don’t quite melt as they continue to idle in the alley. “It’s very cold out.”

Hakyeon smiles again, and this time the action is less heartfelt. “Not for me.”

The small smile quickly dims. Taekwoon doesn’t know what to say.

He doesn’t know what to say, but he has seen the same expression Hakyeon is currently wearing whenever Jaehwan introduces himself and needs explain,  _No, no, there’s nothing wrong with my curse; I just don’t have one_  and when Wonsik warns people to be careful what they say in his presence. So he just nods.

Hakyeon puts out the cigarette in the snow, wiping his hands on his pants.

 _He chats so much_ , Wonsik had said.  _He just keeps talking and talking_.

Silence.

Deep breath.

“Jung Taekwoon.”

Hakyeon stares.

“My name. Jung Taekwoon,” Taekwoon repeats. “Nice to meet you.” Hakyeon is still staring. “You knew already, but I thought I should introduce myself. And I guess we’ve met before, too, but—” He’s babbling. “You looked upset,” he finishes lamely.

“Oh.” Hakyeon’s voice is quiet. The smile has flipped into a faint frown.

 _Oh no_. _I made it worse_.

“I think,” Hakyeon starts. He worries his lower lip, scuffing a shoe, and it strikes Taekwoon that he looks uncharacteristically hesitant. “I think I told someone the wrong thing today.”

Hakyeon’s eyes flicker with uncertainty. He glares down at the cigarette. “I’m scared.” He’s talking faster now. “He’s just a boy, I didn’t want to crush his dreams, but I had no place to tell him he would be okay when I failed and came running back like a coward.”

He lapses into a heavy silence, and Taekwoon doesn’t know what Hakyeon is talking about, but the expression is back. He blinks, still looking down, and a procession of tears begins to trace down his face, leaving behind lines of frost until they fall off his chin in drops of ice. Taekwoon begins to understand why Hakyeon isn’t shivering in his thin shirt.

“I don’t think running away is cowardly,” Taekwoon finally voices. Hakyeon is surprised, his mouth an open “o.” He contemplates his next words carefully. “I might not be one to talk, and I don’t know specifically what you’re referring to, but I don’t see you as a coward.”

Hakyeon doesn’t believe him. Taekwoon can see it in the lingering moisture in his eyes, and it’s unfair how frustrated he is that he doesn’t know Hakyeon well enough to know exactly what to say. It’s enough, though, for Hakyeon to put on a shaky half-smile and dab at his inner eye corners and straighten his spine just a little bit more.

“Thank you,” he says sincerely. “I don’t—thank you,” he repeats again. He takes a deep breath, composing himself.

Taekwoon runs out of courage as Hakyeon brings hands up to cup his cheeks, endearingly shy. He can feel the tips of his own ears warming, and he tears his eyes away from Hakyeon’s face to study his shoes instead.

“Also, likewise,” Hakyeon continues abruptly. He sucks in his lips, chewing on the inside of his mouth. “To what you said earlier, I mean. It’s nice to formally meet you.”

Before Taekwoon can chicken out, he shoves out his open right hand, thumb pointing up. It’s an invitation, an introduction, and a challenge. He blinks at Hakyeon expectantly, even as his heart thumps painfully hard in his chest. He hopes the tremble in his fingers can be written away as shivering. Hakyeon hesitates only for a brief second, glancing between the hand and his face, before he steps forward and reciprocates the handshake.

Hakyeon’s hand is cold, but Taekwoon is expecting it and he doesn’t flinch.

After a moment, Hakyeon beams.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Taekwoon gets a hug and Hakyeon makes a promise.

The Curse Management Control Force was born the year after the curse broke out, as a direct result of an incident downtown where a newly-cursed child accidentally inhaled all the oxygen within a twenty-foot radius and asphyxiated twelve bystanders. There were no deaths, but nine of the twelve were sent to the hospital for further examination.

The CMCs wear white suits with state-of-the-art protective material and are authorized to carry weaponry beyond any police department in the country. A glorified army living at the heart of the city, as some like to say. They are rarely active in public, only stepping in when a curse-related case becomes too much for the police to handle.

Taekwoon has only seen the CMCs actively working twice in his life.

Once, in the spring of fourth grade, he had been walking home, idly twisting the straps of his backpack, when he spotted a police van parked outside of his neighbor’s house, red and blue lights still flashing. The couple living next door was standing at the gate, sallow-faced and red-eyed, surrounded by officers.

“We’ll do our best to find him,” one of them said as he jotted something down in a notepad.

They could only nod as they held each other, trembling.

Two days later, when the police cars were gone, a single man in a white uniform knocked on their door early in the morning to inform them that a investigation had found their son wandering in a small fishing town forty miles from the city. Not even the boy himself remembered how he had gotten there, dehydrated and malnourished by the time the CMC had discovered his whereabouts.

The second time, Taekwoon had been in the fall of his last year of undergrad, when Jaehwan stumbled into their shared apartment with a large, limp boy in tow. His clothes were wrinkled and nondescript, contrasted only by a pair of bright red headphones wrapped around his neck.

“My friend’s running from some really bad people right now. Can he stay here?” was all the explanation Taekwoon got from Jaehwan before he threw the boy onto their carpet.

He crashed on the couch and slept for fourteen straight hours before he could get up and properly introduce himself.

“My name is Kim Wonsik. Please be careful what you say in front of me.”

The rules were no audible promises, contracts, or oaths within hearing distance. Otherwise, Wonsik proved himself a perfectly polite, courteous third roommate in their flat. Aside from a slight predisposition to clutter, Taekwoon had no complaints to the boy’s presence. Most of the time, he just curled up on the couch with his headphones tight over his ears.

A week into Wonsik’s move to their living room, two men in white suits knocked on the door.

“We have been informed that a student by the name of Kim Wonsik is currently staying here,” one said. “We have come to offer our protection in return for his part-time services to the police department.”

Later, Taekwoon would learn that Wonsik “volunteered” after classes at the local culinary institution by sitting in the court house during hearings and verifying the legitimacy of oaths taken on the stand. He never learned who the boy had been running from that first week Jaehwan had dragged him to their apartment.

\--

Hakyeon is still smiling when he wakes up the next morning. He checks his phone in bed and kicks his feet until Tux jumps up, yapping, to join in.

“Look, look,” he whispers, showing Tux.

“Look, look,” he sighs to Soybean Paste, the baby aloe plant he keeps on his windowsill.

“Look, look,” he gloats to Jaehwan, who squeals, showing a proper reaction, unlike the other two.

“Look, look,” he crows to Sanghyuk, who just stares back, unimpressed.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“Look!” Hakyeon insists, shoving the screen closer to Sanghyuk’s face. “Here look, the _name_.”

“Taekwoon-hyung texted you a period, I can see that,” Sanghyuk frowns. “So?"

“So I could have his number, Sanghyuk.” Hakyeon shakes the phone one more time before drawing it back. “His _number_.”

“And you texted back a winky face?” Sanghyuk gags. “That’s so creepy, hyung.”

“Don’t be rude, Sanghyuk. It’s not creepy,” Hakyeon sniffs. And then, “Oh my god. He totally thinks I’m creepy, doesn’t he?”

Sanghyuk just nods solemnly.

“He hasn’t blocked Jaehwan-hyung’s number yet, so you should be fine,” Wonsik says later around a mouthful of bread. They’re chewing on sandwiches in the back room as Wonsik takes his lunch break. He hums and swallows. “Probably.”

Taekwoon, apparently, only texts back when absolutely necessary. After two days of agonizing over no response to the winking emoji, Hakyeon sends a short one-line message asking if Taekwoon likes sweet peas. Small talk suitable for a florist. Taekwoon replies in ten minutes with a simple _Yes_ and an inquiry toward Hakyeon’s favorite flower.

After that, the conversation flies.

Hakyeon stays at his parents’ house for the holidays, reconnecting with old family friends and meeting all his cousins’ and siblings’ children. In the quiet moments between cooking, cleaning, and chatting with his relatives, he finds himself glued to his phone, tapping an endless stream of quick updates and inane messages.

Taekwoon is different from Hakyeon’s expectations. That night behind the store, his hand had been rough, callused from years of sports and piano, not soft and gentle as Hakyeon had imagined. He loves a challenge and hates to lose, evidenced by a particular drunken-rage-fueled rant over a game of Monopoly. He is too crabby to send long messages in the mornings, too sleepy to correct typos at night, and unable to function without caffeine at all times of the day.

For all the time it took Taekwoon to muster his courage and introduce himself, he falls into Hakyeon’s life with alarming ease. On the Tuesday after the holidays, Hakyeon, hesitant to resume his habit of staking out at the café, is saved from his indecision when Taekwoon walks into the flower shop with a coffee in each hand.

“Delivery from Jaehwan,” Taekwoon mumbles, but the blush is fading. In its place is a quiet, unremarkable comfort as Taekwoon settles onto the stool behind the counter that Hakyeon offers.

Of course, he has boundaries, and Hakyeon is more than willing to prod at Taekwoon to see where they lie. He discovers one merely two hours after Taekwoon has settled onto his seat, scrolling his phone. Business is moderate, which means Hakyeon has time to chatter as he works, with Sungjae occasionally chiming in as he sweeps. He is mid-sentence when the comment comes, unbidden.

“You talk a lot.”

Hakyeon pauses. Tilts his head. “Do I?”

Taekwoon nods.

“Too much?”

A pause for consideration. “Not yet.”

And so Hakyeon keeps talking.

\--

Hakyeon, Taekwoon learns, is not an angel as he had initially suspected.

For one, he is too clingy.

On Monday, Taekwoon decides to walk by the flower shop on the way to work, half-expecting Hakyeon’s greeting from where he normally squats to water the flowers. He smiles to himself, opening the last text message he had received the previous night.

[11:21pm] Hakyeon: good night! (＾ω＾)

[11:23pm] Taekwoon: good night

[11:23pm] Hakyeon: see you tomorrow!!（ﾉ´∀`)

The world tilts sideways as something heavy slams into his side. Taekwoon faintly registers a voice squealing his name as he gasps for breath.

“Good morning,” Taekwoon manages after a few seconds. Hakyeon is clinging to his side, pinning his arms down. He feels himself swaying again as he registers exactly how close they are, cool skin and breath on his neck sending shivers down Taekwoon’s spine.

 _I could stay like this forever_ , Taekwoon thinks, his brain a bit muddled as he tries to carry out a full conversation without stuttering. He learns later, in fact, that he could not.

The first time Hakyeon clings to Taekwoon, Taekwoon has trouble keeping his heart from beating out of his chest. The thirtieth time, he just sighs, resigned, and wilts into the now familiar, stifling hold. No matter how hard he blushes for Hakyeon’s affections, there is a limit to how much physical contact Taekwoon can handle from one person, who is constantly yammering in his ear.

Which brings him to his second point: Hakyeon is _loud_. All the time.

 _He chats so much_ , Wonsik had said. _He just keeps talking and talking_. Wonsik had been absolutely right.

Taekwoon soon realizes that it doesn’t matter if he responds or not; Hakyeon will just keep on talking.

And talking.

And talking.

Sometimes, Taekwoon thinks he has befriended a second Jaehwan.

Once, he slips and tells Hakyeon, irritated, “You talk too much.”

The stream of words stops immediately, replaced by a hesitant and painfully cramped smile. “Sorry, it’s a bad habit of mine. Should I stop?”

And suddenly, Taekwoon remembers again how close Hakyeon is to being a stranger. He can recognize the curve of Hakyeon’s shoulder, the tilt of his head, and the brush of his fringe against his forehead, but Taekwoon still does not know the words to stop his tears or lift him from his brooding. Likewise, Hakyeon cannot know when Taekwoon’s words are meant to hurt and when they are mild under the barbs.

Hakyeon is not an angel. He is flawed: too clingy, too loud, and too pushy, always tutting and nagging when Taekwoon glares and picks fights with Jaehwan.

Taekwoon realizes he does not need an angel, though, when he can learn the small habits, blemishes, and mannerisms that compose Cha Hakyeon. Someday, he will look into the face of this intricate man and see the fissures in his smile and know exactly how to glue them together. The thought that eventually, Hakyeon might understand him just as deeply fills him with overwhelming anticipation and fear.

Taekwoon does not lie to Hakyeon. He does not say, _You are perfect as you are now_.

Instead, he shakes his head. “Just a little quieter.”

A compromise.

\--

Taekwoon, Hakyeon learns, is a sap when it comes to Sanghyuk.

Hakyeon’s sitting in bed cradling his phone and balancing his laptop on his knees when he texts Taekwoon Thursday night. He sniffles slightly, blowing his nose on a tissue.

[11:26pm] Hakyeon: i just finished that movie you recommended

[11:27pm] Hakyeon: it was so good (ﾉ*ﾟｰﾟ)ﾉ

[11:28pm] Hakyeon: i cried during the flashback scene

[11:28pm] Hakyeon: (ｉДｉ)

Hakyeon sets down his phone to dry his eyes off and rinse his face. To his consternation, there is no reply when he gets back.

[11:49pm] Hakyeon: ???? are you asleep??

[11:55pm] Hakyeon: taekwoon?

[11:57pm] Hakyeon: taekwoooooon

[11:58pm] Hakyeon: taekwooooooooon

Hakyeon’s fingers hover over the keyboard. Nine texts in a row would border on clingy, he decides, shutting the phone off and tossing it next to his knee. Better be safe and leave it at just eight.

It beeps twenty minutes later.

[12:23am] Taekwoon: it’s a good movie

[12:24am] Hakyeon: why did you reply so late????（○｀Ｏ´○）

 [12:26am] Taekwoon: i was arguing with hyuk

[12:27am] Hakyeon: why???

[12:29am] Taekwoon: he drank all the soymilk this morning

[12:30am] Hakyeon: he lives with you and hongbin?

[12:31am] Taekwoon: no he was visiting

[12:32am] Hakyeon: looking for some cousinly advice?

[12:33am] Taekwoon: no

[12:33am] Taekwoon: he doesn’t like to talk to me

[12:34am] Hakyeon:  ( ´艸｀) is he in his rebellious phase

{12:36am] Taekwoon: no

[12:37am] Hakyeon: aww are you sad

[12:38am] Taekwoon: no

Hakyeon pauses to chuckle. He can imagine Taekwoon pouting at his screen, dejected that Sanghyuk is too moody to pay attention to him.

[12:40am] Hakyeon: isn’t it a little late?? he’s past his teens already

[12:43am] Taekwoon: i don’t know. he’s been avoiding me lately

[12:44am] Hakyeon: (｀_´)ゞ like how do you mean?

[12:45am] Taekwoon: i don’t know

[12:47am] Taekwoon: i guess he never wants to talk when I ask him about school

[12:48am] Taekwoon: and my uncle and aunt say he gets home really late

[12:49am] Taekwoon: but he never comes to visit our apartment anymore

[12:50am] Taekwoon: he’s always at the cafe talking with jaehwan

[12:51am] Taekwoon: do you think he’s mad at me?

Hakyeon laughs loudly, startling Tux into a short fit of barking.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, patting the puppy’s head.

He sighs, reading through the texts again. Taekwoon’s infatuated monologue aside, Sanghyuk’s behavior is worrying. He had wanted to keep his transfer application a secret when he and Hakyeon talked, but Taekwoon has clearly been agonizing for a while now.

Not that Hakyeon can really judge. The last time he and Sanghyuk had talked about the transfer, he had almost broken down and cried behind the shop. He can’t blame Sanghyuk for being nervous.

Hakyeon scrolls up and down the conversation, guilt worming through his chest.

[1:03am] Hakyeon: he’s probably just sorting out some things in his life right now

[1:04am] Hakyeon: he loves you very much

[1:05am] Hakyeon: i’m sure he’ll come talk to you when he’s ready

[1:07am] Taekwoon: has he talked to you about it?

Hakyeon pauses, chewing his lip.

[1:09am] Hakyeon: no

Hakyeon finds Sanghyuk at the café on Saturday morning, fiddling on his phone with a spread of textbooks before him.

“Can I sit here?” Hakyeon points to the empty seat across from him when Sanghyuk looks up.

He nods, face blank. “Sure, hyung.”

“So,” Hakyeon takes a deep breath. “I wanted to talk, Sanghyuk.” The boy’s face is still carefully neutral. “I know you haven’t told Taekwoon about the transfer applications, but I think he would be receptive to the idea.”

Sanghyuk eyes him for a long moment. “You two have gotten really close.”

Hakyeon smiles. “We have. I’ve learned a lot of things about him in the past few weeks.”

Sanghyuk hums. After a moment, he flicks his gaze towards the counter, away from Hakyeon. “You guys talk a lot.”

“Yes, we do,” Hakyeon says slowly, raising an eyebrow. He wonders if he’s missing something when Sanghyuk suddenly starts and beckons with his hand, lips lifting into a smile.

A moment later, Wonsik is standing at their table, his hands still covered in flour. He has a pair of red headphones resting around his neck today, the cord tucked into his uniform.

“Can you treat me to cake today, hyung?” Sanghyuk wheedles. “I left my wallet at home.”

Wonsik sighs, flicking a bit of flour at his forehead, but dutifully ambles back to the kitchen to wash his hands and retrieve a cake.

Sanghyuk flips at a page, crossing and uncrossing his legs. He looks up at Hakyeon, blurting, “Did you tell Taekwoon-hyung about my application?”

Hakyeon blinks. “No. God, no, Sanghyuk. You asked me not to.” He relaxes, leaning back a little. “Were you worried about that?”

“Well, yeah.” Sanghyuk’s eyes dart behind Hakyeon before he refocuses back on his face. “I know you probably feel bad for keeping it from him, but I don’t want to tell him right now. He’d only get mad.”

“He’s worried, Sanghyuk,” Hakyeon says. “He told me your parents are concerned, too.”

Sanghyuk only blinks.

“Okay, fine,” Hakyeon sighs. “You have to tell him eventually, though, you know.”

“I know.” Sanghyuk pauses, shuffling his feet. “So you really won’t tell him?”

“I won’t,” Hakyeon says, frowning.

Sanghyuk’s brow wrinkles for a moment. He’s looking past Hakyeon’s shoulder. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I won’t tell him about the application. I just told you—”

A ripple of tingles washes over Hakyeon, clutching tight in his chest and crashing through his brain in loud waves. The sensation of something chilly skitters down his spine, not quite cold but similar in that it induces involuntary shivers. He blinks, and the feeling is gone.

“Sanghyuk, what the _fuck_.” Hakyeon whips around to see Wonsik standing behind him, horror painting his face pale. A slice of blue iced chiffon sits in his hands, forgotten. “What did you make him promise?”

When Hakyeon looks back, Sanghyuk’s expression has already begun to shutter.

“What just happened?” Hakyeon demands, but Sanghyuk is already scooping his books away into a bag.

“It wasn’t anything dangerous,” Sanghyuk mutters, avoiding his eyes.

“ _Anything_ can be dangerous,” Wonsik explodes, and Hakyeon jumps. He’s never seen the pastry chef angry before. “I don’t remember giving you permission to throw my curse around whenever you please, Sanghyuk.”

“I just wanted to make sure,” Sanghyuk shoots back, eyes glassy. He’s running out the door before Wonsik can yell another word at him.

\--

Taekwoon had been surprised to see Wonsik again at Jaehwan’s workplace. At the time, he was still part of the wait staff, a part-timer finishing his degree at culinary school. He had been sitting at the window seat, poring over the menu, when he looked up to see familiar red headphones and a pair of droopy eyes curved into pleased crescents.

Taekwoon asked, once, what the headphones were for.

“They block out sound,” Wonsik said, lifting one side off his ear. “So I don’t hear anything unnecessary. The silence feels safe, you know?”

Taekwoon knew. Noise meant people and people meant trouble.

“Of course, they’re not 100% foolproof, but I’ll take what I can get.”

He wasn’t sure why he spoke next, but looking back on it, the reason was obvious. Here was a boy who needed the solitude just as much as he did. Here was a boy who was the _same_.

“I know someone who could do something about that.”

He handed the headphones back two days later, newly soundproofed by Yoseob. Wonsik’s thanks echoed in his ears for weeks afterwards.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sanghyuk gets chased out of the café and everyone watches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for brief descriptions of bullying and sports injury in the first scene and a panic attack in the second scene

The first time Hakyeon left the city, he was a hero.

Cha Hakyeon, the one student gifted enough to study dance outside the concrete walls. He was famous, all golden skin, fluid limbs, and modest smiles, constantly basking in the attention of his classmates.

His parents had been against the idea.

“You’re different,” his mother worried. “They won’t like that you’re different.”

“Your brother and sisters are gone, too,” his father griped. “Who will inherit the flower shop?”

“You’re gifted,” his teacher said. “It would be such a waste if you didn’t go.”

“You’ve got big dreams, kid.” his brother had ruffled his hair. “I’ll take care of you.”

And so it was settled. Hakyeon would share a one-bedroom apartment with his brother, who had been commuting to university working on his archaeology degree at the time. His parents pleaded with him to keep a low profile, but he knew better. The only way to succeed in dance was to stand out, to shine brighter than any other student in the academy.

His parents cried as they sent him off. When Hakyeon asked who would take over the flower shop, his father wrapped an arm around his shoulders and said, “Don’t worry about it. This is your chance to become a dancer. Don’t let it go.”

And then it was just Hakyeon and his brother again, passing through the gates, the entire world spread in front of them. The giant concrete walls look impossibly small as they drove away, and Hakyeon couldn’t help but remember how imposing they had seemed up close, looming over him.  

“Don’t worry about dad and the shop. It’s okay to want to do something for yourself,” his brother told him. “Seize the chance while you’re still a kid.”

 _Just this once, while I’m young_ , Hakyeon promised himself, sitting on the passenger side with his feet on the dash and his knees to his chest. _Just this once, I’ll be selfish_.

The first few months at the academy, Hakyeon _thrived_. The competition was fierce and the instructors were hard, but Hakyeon learned techniques and movements he couldn’t even dream of encountering at the small dance school back home. He practiced twice as hard as the others, reserving the practice room during any breaks in his schedule. He drank in the new knowledge with fervor, spurred by his teachers’ praise and his peers’ jealousy.

Then, the rumors started.

Hakyeon had been extremely careful in hiding his curse from the other students, but it eventually got out, as information was wont to spread in a small school. When he walked outside in the dead of winter wearing only a t-shirt and a pair of track pants, they jeered and stared in turn, whispering when they thought he couldn’t hear.

 _That kid’s cursed_ , they mocked, _Touching him must be like touching a corpse._

He reserved the practice rooms later and later at night. It was better to lose sleep than to dance under the glaring stares of his classmates. Performing under the envious eyes of others was easy; it was standing in front of a crowd that ogled him with a mixture of fear and disgust that he couldn’t stand.

He learned that it was harder and harder to control his curse with enough stress and lack of sleep. His internal temperature began to fluctuate the more tired he became, sometimes leaking out enough to chill an entire room.

The first time he realized others could feel his curse was in the middle of a jazz evaluation. As he spun, he spotted a boy shiver, a spasm of utter revulsion flashing across his face. He barely avoided falling through that turn, and the next two, as nausea grew in the pit of his stomach.

 _They won’t like that you’re different._ His mother had been absolutely right, he reflected as he endured the sharp tongue-lashing he received from the instructor afterwards, standing as straight as he could under the glaring gazes of twenty of his peers.

When Hakyeon finally slipped, he did not scream. He saved his tears and snot for the ambulance, safe from the prying eyes of his peers.

In the twenty minutes he spent motionless on the ground, needles and hammers driving waves of pain up his back, he clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, proud even as he lay, helpless and broken and small, under the harsh judgment and twisted satisfaction. The fall had been excruciating, but with the twisted crack had come a sick swell of relief.

“A year and a half,” the doctor told him. “You can fully recover in a year and a half if you’re diligent with your physical therapy.”

His brother cried with relief, but Hakyeon already knew how he would respond.

“I want to quit.”

Four words, and it was done. His family protested, as did his teachers, but after he got the first four words out, the rest came easily.

Some were false ( _I don’t think I would like dancing professionally_ ).

Some were true ( _Therapy is expensive, and someone needs to inherit the flower shop_ ).

Some he never said aloud ( _I’m scared to keep going; I want to give up_ ).

 _It’s alright_ , Hakyeon thought to himself as he entered the academy for the last time to bid his instructors goodbye and inform the administration of his decision. _It’s time to grow up. I had my chance to be selfish, but now it’s over._

\--

Wonsik sets down the chiffon cake after Sanghyuk leaves. He’s trembling, Hakyeon can see, and his pupils are slightly dilated as he stares down at the table.

“Wonsik.” No response. Hakyeon tries again. “Wonsik, what’s wrong?”

Wonsik blinks, flinching as Hakyeon reaches out to touch him. He flinches and shakes his head, gritting his teeth.

“Hakyeon?” Jaehwan materializes next to them, taking stock of the situation in a glance. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Hakyeon murmurs. “Something weird happened with Sanghyuk, and Wonsik started panicking.”

“Shit,” Jaehwan curses, looking troubled. “Wonsik, are you okay?”

“I need to go,” he chokes out with difficulty, his breath shallow and fast.

“Okay, take your time,” Jaehwan says, quiet but firm. “Go out the back and sit down. I’ll call Seokjin to fill in for the rest of your shift.”

Hakyeon takes a half step forward. “I’ll come—”

“No!” Wonsik says, a little too loud. He’s sweating, Hakyeon realizes. “Stay here. Wait for my shift to finish.”

Hakyeon nods, and Wonsik turns to go, fumbling at his headphones with shaking hands and jamming them over his ears.

Jaehwan turns back to Hakyeon. “What did Sanghyuk say? Did they get into a fight or something?”

“No,” Hakyeon says, stilted. “I just—he just asked me to keep a secret for him.”

Realization dawns on Jaehwan’s face, along with something darker. “Did you promise to do so?”

“Jaehwan, don’t get mad at Sanghyuk, he’s got a lot on his plate,” Hakyeon starts, but Jaehwan is already throwing down his apron.

“He has _no right_ to do that to Wonsik,” Jaehwan hisses. He takes a deep breath, draws heavy fingers down his face. When he doesn’t smile, he wears too many lines, Hakyeon thinks. “What the hell is up with him? He’s been avoiding Taekwoon-hyung lately. He just sits in here and mopes around and works too much.”

“What’s going on?” Hakyeon demands.

“Wait for Wonsik to come back,” is all the answer Jaehwan gives. “Walk him back home. He needs someone to look after him. And _don’t_ make any promises where he can hear, whatever you do. Be extremely careful what you say.”

Wonsik reemerges at the end of the hour, nose and cheeks rosy from squatting outside the employee entrance.

“Hey.” A shaky smile. “Thanks for waiting.”

“It was nothing,” Hakyeon says. “Would you like me to walk you home?”

Wonsik nods. “Thanks, hyung. I’m sure you have some things to say to Sanghyuk, too.”

Hakyeon pretends not to notice Wonsik’s hands tremble as he adjusts the headphones over and over as they leave the café.

“You know, hyung, I used to work for the CMCs when I was in college. I wasn’t in the police force or anything,” he rushes to explain at Hakyeon’s look of alarm. “It was just part-time work. I sat in the court houses during important trials and listened to the witnesses when they gave their oaths on the stand. A special favor they asked of me.

“It’s my curse,” Wonsik explains as they trudge through the snow, “If you make a verbal promise in front of me, it will always happen, no matter how you might try to avoid it.”

“I just promised Sanghyuk not to tell Taekwoon about his application,” Hakyeon notes, “That shouldn’t be too big of a deal.”

“Anything can be dangerous,” Wonsik says miserably. “That’s how fate works.”

Hakyeon recognizes the tired lines under his eyes as he stares down at his feet. When they get back to the apartment, he stumbles straight for his bedroom, ducking his head at Hakyeon in thanks. He motions at the room across from his, mouthing Sanghyuk’s name. The hallway is empty and quiet, but the light under the door indicates that Sanghyuk is already back home.

Taking a deep breath, Hakyeon knocks.

When Sanghyuk comes out, his eyes are lined with red. Hakyeon faces him straight on, squaring his jaw.

“We need to talk.”

Sanghyuk sighs, caving a bit in on himself, and opens the door wider to invite Hakyeon inside.

“I haven’t been altogether straightforward about this transfer business,” Hakyeon starts. He sits on the bed, fumbling with his fingers, and doesn’t quite look at Sanghyuk at his desk.

Sanghyuk is quiet and tired, slumped into his chair. It occurs to Hakyeon that he has seen the boy worried, angry, embarrassed, happy, and inquisitive, but never sad.

“When you first asked me about transferring, I didn’t want to support you. I wanted to tell you to give up.”

Sanghyuk’s eyes widen.

“I didn’t want you to fail like I did,” Hakyeon says. “I told you before, right? I left the city to join a dance academy, and then I got injured and dropped out.”

“That’s outside of your control, hyung,” Sanghyuk interjects. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it was. It doesn’t change that I couldn’t survive out there. Besides,” Hakyeon smiles ruefully, “there’s more to it than just that.” He leans in just a little, propping his chin in his hands. “Let me tell you again about why I came back.”

The words come with old aches at first, but Hakyeon finds that they flow more easily with Sanghyuk sitting, red-eyed and wilted, in front of him. _For the sake of his future_ , Hakyeon thinks, _I’ll talk, even if he thinks less of me afterwards._

At the end, Sanghyuk’s eyes are wet. For what, Hakyeon isn’t sure, but the tears leak out anyway, and Hakyeon reflects that this giant of a boy is a boy after all.

“I’m ashamed,” Hakyeon admits. “I’m ashamed at myself for lying and disappointing everyone and giving in and giving _up_. I wanted to tell you not to go, because I didn’t want to see you end up crushed or jaded or sad.”

“But—”

“I won’t tell you that now,” Hakyeon continues, his tone not unkind. “Because I know this is important to you, and I don’t want you to give up before you’ve even started. Just know that whatever you decide, and whatever anyone else tells you, you can always come ask me for help or advice. I can’t give you anything you want, but I want you to be happy, Sanghyuk.”

At this, Sanghyuk’s face crumples and he begins crying in earnest. It makes him look so much younger. For once, he lets Hakyeon hug him until the tears stop.

\--

Taekwoon comes home to a dark hallway and the scent of vanilla candles and instant ramen. He sighs, plugging his nose.

The kitchen is similarly dim, lit only by a small army of candles littering all the available counter space.

“Welcome back,” Hongbin greets from the table, bent over his phone and ramen.

Taekwoon grunts, spooning himself a bowl. “It stinks.”

“I got them from Hakyeon-hyung,” Hongbin says without looking up. “He made them.”

“That’s nice, but don’t eat ramen while they’re lit.” Taekwoon blows out the nearest three. “It smells terrible.”

“Wonsik likes them,” Hongbin mutters, frowning at something on his screen. “Hyung, do you know how to make lasagna?”

“I’m not teaching you.”

“Aw, hyung, what if I set fire to the kitchen doing it myself?”

“Then you’ll be paying for repairs.” Taekwoon puts out a few more candles. “Why should I teach you? You’re just going to kick me out of the house on Valentine’s Day.”

“Go stay with Hyuk at Wonsik’s place,” Hongbin retorts. “You do it every year.”

“Yeah, because you kick me out every year.”

“So you must be used to it,” Hongbin says smoothly. “Think of poor Sanghyuk. If Wonsik and I suddenly decided to kick him out, he would be stuck, alone, out in the cold. He’s too young for this.”

“That’s a load of bull,” Taekwoon tells him shortly. “Sanghyuk spends more time on our couch than we do. His mother lives half an hour from him by bus!”

Hongbin shrugs, shoving noodles into his mouth.

“You just don’t want to go to Wonsik’s place because it smells like socks.” Taekwoon’s tone is bordering on accursatory, but he can’t help himself.

“Nope,” Hongbin says, swallowing. “We just agreed that it would be easier to kick you out than him.”

Taekwoon holds himself back from screaming, but just barely. Because he’s a generous roommate and friend.

It doesn’t matter, either way. Taekwoon ends up spending Valentine’s Day evening playing romantic atmospheric music in the café because, as Jaehwan had so eloquently put it, _All your friends either work on this street or have a date with their significant other, so you might as well celebrate your solitude with coffee. Besides, it’s good for business._

Sure enough, Hakyeon and Sanghyuk and Jaehwan are all sitting or working at various tables when he arrives and drags out the piano bench. Hongbin had just put the lasagna in the oven when he left, so he’s not surprised that Wonsik is off his shift already.

“What are you here for?” Taekwoon asks when Hakyeon comes over to lean on the piano and peer at the sheet music.

“Special delivery,” Hakyeon waves a hand. “The usual boy’s out today.”

Taekwoon frowns. Did the Chas’ flower shop even do deliveries?

“Who was it for?”

“Oh, you’ll see soon enough.” Another idle hand wave. “How about you? Why are you today?”

A grimace. “I get kicked out of the apartment every year for Wonsik and Hongbin’s date. Hongbin burns the dinner every time, and then Wonsik stays over until noon the next morning. Thanks to your candles this year, the apartment’s going to stink of vanilla and lasagna for the rest of the week.”

Hakyeon laughs. “That’s sweet. Where are you staying tonight, then?”

“Probably with Sanghyuk,” Taekwoon says. “In his and Wonsik’s place.”

“Oh,” Hakyeon wrinkles his nose. “Sorry to hear that. Their place is a mess.”

“What?” Taekwoon frowns. “You’ve been there?”

Before Hakyeon can answer, they’re interrupted by a screech and a loud crash. The café comes to a standstill, all eyes trained on the pick-up station as Jaehwan stands, wide-eyed, one hand holding a spilled cup of coffee and the other clutching a pink rose tied with white ribbon.

“Ah,” Hakyeon whispers, barely containing his laughter. “He found the delivery.”

“Your hand,” Junghwan starts, but Jaehwan interrupts him with a yell.

“Han Sanghyuk, you little motherfucker! _I can’t believe I didn’t guess earlier!_ ”

Sanghyuk stands, chair clattering. He has the look of a deer staring down the hunter’s barrel. Taekwoon is utterly baffled, and, judging by the stares ranging from confusion to apprehension, he isn’t alone. They stand, frozen, as the café looks on.

And then Sanghyuk is off like a bullet, knocking over chairs and abandoning his things as he runs for the door. He slams into the handle with a bang, rattling the glass as he stumbles outside and down the pavement, pumping his arms.

Taekwoon gapes after him. “What the fuck—”

“Oh no you don’t!”

Jaehwan vaults over the counter in a feat of impressive and unnecessary athleticism, throwing down the cup in a splatter of scalding coffee and sprinting after the boy to snatch at his collar. Amidst the ensuing bewildered but enthusiastic applause, Junghwan groans and directs one of the younger staff members to fetch a mop.

“Are you going to explain what just happened?” Taekwoon demands, but Hakyeon is too busy laughing and clapping along.

Ten minutes later, after the hubbub has died down, Taekwoon receives a text.

[5:05pm] Sanghyuk: don’t come over today

[5:06pm] Sanghyuk: jaehwan-hyung’s staying over

“Oh dear,” Hakyeon says over Taekwoon’s shoulder as he gawks, speechless, at his phone. “It would be bad to interrupt them.”

“I can’t believe I just got kicked out twice,” Taekwoon groans.

“Hmm,” Hakyeon hums, leaning forward against Taekwoon’s back. “Do you want to crash at my place tonight?”

Taekwoon doesn’t faint, but it’s a near thing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hakyeon and Taekwoon discover the merits of sharing.

They end up getting home around eight, an hour after the flower shop closes. Taekwoon had played with Tux while Hakyeon ran back and forth in his apron, teasing the puppy with chew toys and rubber balls until he fell asleep.

“You can leave your shoes here.” Hakyeon points his toe to where he had neatly arranged his own in the foyer. Taekwoon complies, still cradling the sleeping puppy. “Would you like coffee or tea?”

“Coffee,” Taekwoon says immediately as Hakyeon reaches out to take Tux from his arms and set him on the bed.

Hakyeon looks at the clock, and then the dark sky outside. “Tea it is. Green or black?”

“Black, please,” a little disgruntled. Hakyeon laughs as he puts on the kettle.

They sit on his small, threadbare couch with tired sighs and presently, the musical sound of rain on shingles begins to filter through the silence. Hakyeon curls his knees up and turns so his back is against the armrest, wedging his toes under Taekwoon’s leg for warmth.

Taekwoon dislikes his tea too hot, Hakyeon observes. He cups his mug, blowing occasionally on the surface, but holds off from drinking it for a while until the steam fades. Hakyeon wonders if Jaehwan makes Taekwoon’s coffee slightly cooler, too; that would explain why he was so good at getting the temperature of Hakyeon’s drinks just right.

It occurs to Hakyeon that there are a lot of things he’s never noticed about Taekwoon. For one, he has a habit of flicking his hair out of his eyes that he’s developed since meeting Hakyeon, probably because he’s due for a haircut soon. He idly switches his crossed legs so his left leg is on top. Absently, Hakyeon notes that he always sits with his legs crossed, whether it be on the stool behind Hakyeon’s counter or on his ratty couch or at the tiny tables in the café.

Taekwoon pauses with the rim of the cup at his lips, lifting an eyebrow, and Hakyeon realizes he’s been staring.

“Just thinking,” Hakyeon tilts his head, contemplating the slant of Taekwoon’s eyes. If Taekwoon let him hold a protractor up to his face, he could probably determine the exact angle. “There are a lot of things I don’t know about you.”

Taekwoon flushes slightly under his gaze. “Well, there are a lot of things I don’t know about you, either.”

“That’s right,” Hakyeon muses. He brightens as an idea occurs to him. “We could play twenty questions! Except instead of twenty, we just keep going as long as we can.”

Taekwoon eyes his critically. “That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“It sounds like a _great_ idea,” Hakyeon insists, nudging his shoulder with an elbow. “I’ll ask first. What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue,” Taekwoon pauses, “No, black.”

“That’s boring,” Hakyeon wrinkles his nose.

“You chose a boring question,” Taekwoon points out. “What’s yours?”

“Black,” Hakyeon admits. Taekwoon groans. “But I like red, too!” He pauses to think about the next question. “Okay, what’s something mundane that makes you happy?”

“This is a bit of a jump from the last question, isn’t it?” Taekwoon says, but stops to consider it anyway. “Seeing my nephew?”

“That’s so cute,” Hakyeon coos, “How old is he?”

“Two.” More cooing. Taekwoon takes a few gulps of his tea, now cool, before he speaks again. “What about you? What makes you happy?”

“Making candles.” Hakyeon laughs sheepishly, sweeping his arms to encompass the soaps and candles scattered across his living space. He shoves at Taekwoon’s shoulder again, this time a little harder. “Don’t be so boring! You can’t just ask the same question as me every time. As me something else.”

“Alright,” Taekwoon concedes, sighing. He leans back into the couch, gaze drifting towards the ceiling. “What’s your favorite junk food?”

“Ice cream,” Hakyeon replies instantly, startling a small laugh, light and musical, out of Taekwoon. “My turn. What are your calluses from?” At Taekwoon’s inquiring glance, he clarifies, “Your palms have a lot of calluses. What are they from?”

Taekwoon sets down his cup on the coffee table, spreading both hands out before him. Hakyeon resists the urge to poke fun that he’s being unexpectedly serious about the game after all the protest from before.

“Those ones are from soccer,” Taekwoon points at his right hand with his left. “I used to play goalie sometimes. There are a few more from the gym.”

“What about that?” Hakyeon points to a long, white scar on the fleshy part of his palm under his left thumb.

Taekwoon laughs fondly, his eyes a bit distant as he remembers. “I cut myself trying to get down from the tree in my backyard. I was a pretty obedient kid, but I kept climbing that giant tree even when my mother told me to stop. Eventually, my father built me a tree house with a rope ladder so I would stop falling, at least.”

Hakyeon smiles at the thought of a small Taekwoon stubbornly clambering up the rough side of a tree five times thicker than his small body.

“My turn,” Taekwoon mumbles, suddenly nervous, and closes his hands back into loose fists in his lap. He licks his lips, looking down. “What’s your curse?”

Hakyeon starts, his breath hitching in his throat.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, of course,” Taekwoon adds. “I’m sorry, it was very sudden.”

“That’s alright,” Hakyeon says, surprising both of them. The knots in his chest have eased, though, and he wonders if that is because he had already discussed this at length with Sanghyuk, or because it is Taekwoon who sits before him, who has held his hand and lets Hakyeon shower him with a thousand indulgent casual touches. “My curse is the cold. I can control the temperature around me and make small winds. As a result, my body is much cooler than normal.”

Hakyeon shivers a little as Taekwoon lifts his eyes and studies his face, his own expression blank. There is no fear, disgust, or even curiosity, but Hakyeon is far from unnerved. After a moment, he decides he likes it. Even when Taekwoon has no words to offer, Hakyeon finds he trusts his frank face.

Hakyeon drops his gaze first, a small curve curling his lips. “What should I ask?”

“You can go twice,” Taekwoon says. “You can ask me the same, and then another question,” he explains. “so we’re even.”

“Okay, then.” Hakyeon replies, words slow with uncertainty. “If you would like.”

Taekwoon is quiet for so long, Hakyeon almost says, _No, never mind_ , but he speaks eventually, so soft he barely breaks the silence.

“I can’t sing.” He sighs, a small puff of breath through the lips that is almost too tiny to be a sigh. “I can’t raise my voice above speaking volume. If I shout or sing or even hum, any living being within hearing distance becomes momentarily paralyzed for as long as they can hear me.” He ends in a whisper, drawing Hakyeon in as he speaks until he is resting his chest on his knees.

It makes sense, Hakyeon reflects. The silence, the reserved words, the earbuds, and the soft tone all make sense. He leans forward just a hair closer, and fancies he can hear it—Taekwoon’s silence.

Taekwoon lets him listen. Even with the backdrop of rain beating against the roof and windows, there is a space of impenetrable silence that covers Taekwoon, and Hakyeon recognizes it. It’s not as tangible as the cold that radiates from his own skin, but he can feel it now, sitting less than a foot away.

It is simultaneously heavy and delicate, tentative and deliberate. Hakyeon stares Taekwoon straight in the eye and Taekwoon stares back and together, they share the silence and the cold with the uncertainty of two people for whom solitude is natural.

Taekwoon holds it for as long as it takes to for Hakyeon to know that the action is intentional, and then he blinks and the moment ends.

“Ask another,” he prompts, in a voice that is smooth enough to slip into the stillness and make one forget that it was ever broken.

When Hakyeon leans back again, he imagines he can feel the quiet draw back with him.

\--

They ask more questions, some teasing and impetuous, others purposeful and inquisitive. It’s very comfortable, Taekwoon thinks, sitting on the couch with Hakyeon’s toes wedged under his leg and Hakyeon’s curious face shoved close to his own.

Hakyeon’s apartment is warmer than Taekwoon had expected. It’s more of a studio than an attic, lived-in and roomy enough for a single inhabitant. The windows and shelves are littered with string lights and candles, but only a few are burning. Taekwoon thinks he can smell something sweet and citrus, lighter and somehow cleaner than the vanilla that was no double currently haunting his own apartment. Pomegranate, Hakyeon explains, after Taekwoon asks. Pomegranate and grapefruit.

“What was your most embarrassing memory from middle school?” Hakyeon asks, eyes twinkling.

Taekwoon retorts with, “When was the first time someone younger called you an old man?”

“Who in your family most resembles you?”

“What’s your favorite memory from college?”

Hakyeon hesitates before answering the last one. “A road trip I took with my friends, probably.”

“You went on a road trip?” Taekwoon is curious despite himself. He’s never traveled before, for obvious reasons.

“It was short,” Hakyeon laughs. “Three days north and then three days back. We didn’t have enough money to go far, and no one wanted to sit in a hot car for much longer than that. Still,” he sighs, a bit wistfully. “It was nice.”

North. Opposite the city, then. Taekwoon leans back. “What are your friends like?”

Hakyeon doesn’t seem to mind or notice the double question. He chews on his lip thoughtfully, then rises from the couch. After a moment of rustling through his closet, he reemerges with a battered-looking shoebox. He lifts the top of as he plops down again, jostling Taekwoon’s leg as he stretches for more space.

The box is filled with photos, postcards, dried flowers, and other knickknacks folded in wrinkled tissue and clean napkins. Hakyeon picks through them, pausing occasionally on a particular picture, expression inscrutable. He hands some to Taekwoon, tossing others back into the box.

There are three boys in total, including Hakyeon. The other two are goofy and insatiably mischievious, and Taekwoon finds the Hakyeon that matches them smile for smile and prank for prank in each photo just a little unfamiliar.

There’s one particular photo taken of Hakyeon asleep in the back seat, head tilted at a crick-inducing angle and mouth agape in a snore. He must have been really tired, because there is a subtle sheen of frost on his skin, climbing up his neck and cheek despite the summer air. In the lower left corner, a finger emerges as if to pick his nose in the camera angle. Taekwoon wonders where those two boys are now, but Hakyeon looks lost in thought, so he tucks the question away for later.

There are confessions, too,

(“One day,” Taekwoon murmurs, “I’ll sing aloud for someone.”

“I’m scared of failure,” Hakyeon says in reply. “I don’t want to fail again.”)

and answers,

(“Let me hear you sing when you’re ready.”

“Failure isn’t the end. You have merely found a new path.”)

and they exchange many more words, letting them pile up in the small space between them.

After a while, Hakyeon gets up again to put the shoebox away and put on another kettle of tea. They resettle on the bed to watch a movie on Hakyeon’s laptop. One movie turns into two after the first one, a thriller that Hakyeon had heard was intriguing, turns out to fall disappointingly flat.

Midway through the second, a cheesy rom-com, Taekwoon finds himself drifting off, his head nodding. After a momentary fight with his eyelids, he lets them fall closed. The crash of something falling in the movie sounds far away, and Taekwoon can’t bring himself to open his eyes again.

Not a minute later, the soft thump of Hakyeon’s head falling into the crook of Taekwoon’s neck informs him that Hakyeon has lost the struggle against sleep, too. His hair smells of floral shampoo, tickling at Taekwoon’s chin. Soon, the sounds of tinny voices from the movie fade into dreamless slumber.

Taekwoon wakes to the sound of rain beating down hard on the roof. The movie has ended already, the laptop screen long dark. With a soft grunt, Taekwoon reached out to close it and set it on the night stand without letting Hakyeon’s head fall from his shoulder.

It’s very comfortable, he thinks, lying on the soft bed with Hakyeon’s cheek on his shoulder and Hakyeon’s cool hands on his waist, his fingertips slightly warmer than usual from prolonged contact with Taekwoon’s skin. He settles back into the pillows, contemplating the way that Hakyeon has somehow curved around him, cold toes nestled against his calves and knees propped onto his legs, and a realization slips into his head.

In the midst of warm candlelight, the pitter patter of rain on the shingles, and the clean scent of tea, Taekwoon registers that he is close to a precipice, sitting on the edge of a tipping point. He can feel himself tilt, almost rocking, and knows that even as he waits, undecided, he will inevitably fall, as he has no way of balancing himself there forever.

 _Not yet_ , he thinks. _Just a bit longer_. He can wait just a bit longer, perched here on the edge. He might fall tonight, amidst the candlelight and the rain and the tea, or he might fall in a month, a year, or a decade. Eventually, there will be other intruding thoughts. He will worry if Hakyeon will feel the same way, or if he will ever gather the courage to tell him, or if he can even climb back over the edge to safety.

For now, though, he will let himself bask in the atmosphere a little longer, until the night ends.

\--

Taekwoon wakes to covers tucked up to his chin, a somewhat bland stack of pancakes on the kitchen counter, and a sticky note on Hakyeon’s refrigerator containing an obscene amount of exclamation points and signed off with an impeccable smiling emoji. He brushes his teeth with an extra toothbrush that Hakyeon had set in the bathroom for him and eats the pancakes slowly, waiting until noon to get back to his own apartment.

Hongbin is washing dishes when he walks in, hair rumpled and face glowing. As Taekwoon had predicted, the air smells like pungent vanilla and lasagna. He wrinkles his nose.

“I heard about Hyuk,” Hongbin says laughingly, looking up. “Where did you stay last night?”

“Hakyeon’s place. I’m opening the windows.”

“It’ll be cold,” Hongbin whines, but makes no move to stop him.

It’s only after the freezing air rushes in, raising goosebumps on Taekwoon’s skin, that he really stops to think about his realization the night before. He still hasn’t completely registered the change, but he can feel a growing wedge of affection nestled tight into his chest and he relishes the unfamiliar sensation, not quite ready for regret yet.

It doesn’t fully settle in until a few days later, when Taekwoon walks into the café and spots a head of purple hair bent over a sketchbook by the window. Without thinking, he veers to the side, stopping right in front of Hakyeon.

“Taekwoon,” he says when he looks up, mildly surprised. “You’re off work already?”

“This is my usual time,” Taekwoon replies, a bit dazed as his eyes unwittingly trace the planes of Hakyeon’s face.

“Is it that late already?” Hakyeon frowns, checking his watch. “Oh no, I need to go back and relieve Sungjae.” He pauses while rising, noticing Taekwoon’s bewildered expression for the first time. “Is something wrong?”

Taekwoon starts, mumbling an excuse, “No, sorry. Just tired from work.”

“Oh.” Hakyeon’s brow creases. “Have you been getting enough rest?”

Taekwoon nods, struggling against the blush that threatens to rise to his cheeks.

 _Oh_ , he realizes as he watches Hakyeon walk out the door and across the street. It had happened, quietly and without ceremony, between the time he had drifted to sleep that night and the time he had walked into the café this morning, gravitating towards that head of purple hair before he even knew where he was going. It had given no warning, but he knows all the same. _I’ve fallen_.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sanghyuk makes an announcement and Jaehwan cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for fighting/derogatory language in general

Taekwoon was born in a hospital twenty minutes by car from his parents’ home. His mother’s water broke at three in the morning, but there had been no panic as his father loaded the whole family into the van in the dead of the night. When a woman has handled pregnancy four times, she develops a sort of jadedness towards the whole routine. Taekwoon’s father had made sure the girls were buckled in before he drove to grandma’s house, dropping them off on the way to the hospital.

Growing up, Taekwoon visited the hospital more times than he could count on both hands. Of course, he had annual check-ups in pediatrics, and Taekwoon and his sisters got into as many accidents as was normal for children their age. There were the times he got hustled to the emergency room for his broken brones, and there was the time he accompanied his second sister for a row of neat stitches on her forehead from hoola-hooping too close to the sharp edge of the kitchen counter, and the time all four went in for giving each other somewhat severe cases of the stomach flu.

Later on, when his grandmother got older and developed arthritis, he would hop in the back seat as his father drove her to therapy, catching any opportunity he could to dig around the receptionists’ lollipop and sticker jar in the waiting room. The nurses doted on him when they saw that he was quiet and polite, handing him small treats from their pockets and digging up old records of which room he was born in to satisfy his brief curiosity. He passed by the room a few times, but each time, there was a new baby crying within and bustling nurses running to and fro and he soon lost interest in the place.

In his senior year of college, when Taekwoon risks his blood pressure to room with his best friend, he learns that Jaehwan has only seen the place he was born once.

“It was my gift for graduating high school. We drove out two hours to get there,” Jaehwan said proudly. “I took pictures. Wanna see?”

There were enough photos to cover half of an album. Some were inane, their subject matter so small that they could be mistaken for accidental, except Taekwoon could tell otherwise from the focused pucker of Jaehwan’s mouth as he pointed to them one by one and recited the associated memory—a particularly lumpy cloud he had spotted from the sidewalk a block from the hospital, the popsicles they bought at a rest stop along the way, the moment the pavement on the highway changed to something darker and fresher, newly laid out. The photos were scattered, barely threaded together in an articulate story in Jaehwan’s brain by the tentative strings of chronology and his sharp memory.

Bizarre storytelling aside, Jaehwan’s birth had seemed as uneventful as Taekwoon’s own. He was the youngest of three, all born in different cities by some affinity for mistimed travel plans by his parents. His father knew the exact route from their hotel to the hospital when Jaehwan came a month early, and the rest was as routine as giving birth in an unfamiliar hospital could be. Jaehwan came out belting screams at the top of his lungs, a habit that had apparently stuck with him through the years.

“What was it like?” Taekwoon asked. “Was it any different from the hospitals here?”

Jaehwan shrugged. “I don’t know. Not really. They didn’t have curse-testing facilities in the pediatrics department, obviously, but it looked the same.” He had glanced down at the pictures, running his fingers over them absently. “There wasn’t anything particularly different, but it felt weird, you know? Everyone was the exact _same_.” After a moment, he corrected himself, “The exact same as _me_.”

“Our parents are all curseless too,” Taekwoon pointed out.

“Yeah, but they’re all over the age of twenty-five,” Jaehwan rolled his eyes, and Taekwoon realized he had never thought of it that way. “It’s weird seeing kids in high school walking down the road and not doing something out of the ordinary. It all looked so uniform and cookie-cutter. Boring.”

Taekwoon had never thought of being curseless as boring before, but Jaehwan said it like it was a given.

Jaehwan raised an eyebrow. “Have you never thought about how everyone in college and younger here has something else to define them? Take it away and they all seem to blend together.”

“Huh,” Taekwoon said, because he really hadn’t thought about it before and he really didn’t have anything else to say. He changed the topic then, because they had reached the end of the trip and the next page was blank. Apparently, the other half of the album was blank. “What will you put over there?”

Jaehwan shrugged, chewing his lip as he mused. “I don’t know. I have another album for college stuff, so I’m leaving this one unfilled for now. Maybe if I go again?”

“You’ll go again?” Taekwoon said, a bit surprised. “Didn’t you say it was boring?”

“Well, yeah, but I’ve only been there once,” Jaehwan pointed out. “And it was only for a day.”

“Huh,” Taekwoon repeated.

He didn’t know why Jaehwan wanted to go again. Sure, seeing the outside was the ultimate great adventure that every kid entertained at some point in their childhood but like most, Taekwoon had grown up and realized that while he was still curious to see what it was like out there, he would never be able to fit in. With anomaly of a curse in a city of normal people, he would stand out like he had a target on his back, a thought that made him queasy with unease.

When it came down to it, Jaehwan was born in a hospital like every other hospital in the city. It really didn’t seem that interesting, but Taekwoon had seen the reverence with which Jaehwan treated each photo as he turned the plastic pages of that photo album, his mouth soft and just shy of a fond smile.

It occurred to Taekwoon then that in the outside, Jaehwan had no curse to brand him, to tag him as an outsider, and that if he stepped foot into the outside, he would melt into the crowd like a drop of water in a lake, undistinguishable from all the rest.

\--

Hakyeon’s life settles into a lull of routine as February ends.

For one, Sanghyuk now has no need to send anonymous flowers to Jaehwan every week. After he sends his transfer application in, his visits drop down to about once every two weeks, or just whenever he felt a sudden bout of anxiety about university in general. Hakyeon would sit him down behind the counter and pretend to believe whatever excuse about helping out or being bored Sanghyuk would spout.

The first few times, Hakyeon asks if Sanghyuk has told Taekwoon about the application yet. After a few clipped responses confirming his suspicions that Sanghyuk does not plan on talking to his cousin anytime soon, Hakyeon stops asking. He hates to back off, but he recognizes that too much nagging might spook the boy, so he holds back as best he can. Eventually, Hakyeon finds that Sanghyuk has begun to lie around his apartment almost as much as Taekwoon does, though they’re hardly there at the same time.

Hakyeon sets up green and gold streamers all around the shop, changing the pink and red displays from February for spring. Sanghyuk exchanges phone numbers with Sungjae and he tailors his visits to Sungjae’s hours. They spend hours chatting at the counter while they wait for customers, thick as thieves.

At the end of March, on a clear, crisp day, Hakyeon receives a text while at work.

“Is Taekwoon-hyung asking for me again?” Sanghyuk asks, grabbing the phone before Hakyeon can protest. He pauses, taking in the unfamiliar name and friendly words. “Is this one of your uni friends?”

“Yes,” Hakyeon says, a bit too bluntly. Sanghyuk gets the message and lets his snatch the phone back.

“Are you going?” Sanghyuk asks, curiosity and something more sympathetic glimmering in his eyes.

Hakyeon grimaces.

“Do you still text him regularly?”

Hakyeon shakes his head. “It’s been hard staying in contact after I moved.”

“Huh.” Sanghyuk stares at him, but refrains from saying more. Finally he shrugs and the conversation ends. Hakyeon doesn’t want the conversation to continue, and Sanghyuk is never one to press Hakyeon for answers.

In April, after one time Hakyeon lets slip that Sanghyuk is always at the shop, Taekwoon begins to visit more often. He never catches Sanghyuk—the boy always manages to slip away just a few minutes before Taekwoon appears at the door—but he does spend a considerable amount of time talking with Hakyeon. They eventually extend their time together past Hakyeon’s break times to evenings and days off. They watch movies (Taekwoon always tends to gravitate towards the ones with dogs), set up picnics in the park (“Are you an elderly couple?” Hongbin demands), and sometimes just sit in Hakyeon’s apartment and chat over coffee (tea if it’s late).

Just like the first night, Hakyeon lets himself sit too close, lets himself satisfy the urge to unthinkingly lay a hand on Taekwoon’s shoulder or sling an arm around his neck when he gets excited. He sneaks peeks at the goosebumps prickle Taekwoon’s smooth skin, wondering at the way he leans into the cold without a moment’s hesitation. Between the words, Hakyeon can feel himself sliding into a quiet trust and he realizes again that after the first few words are out, the rest are easier.

Late hours draw out story after story, some solemn and others embarrassing, but the one that Hakyeon had first forced himself to tell to Sanghyuk comes slipping out in small bits and pieces, this time much more naturally. He tells Taekwoon about the dark practice rooms, the cold that never chilled his skin, and the phantom pain that still races up his back and in return, he receives a tale of a small voice, absent notes, and a silence that looms higher than concrete walls.

They share small, mundane pieces of their lives—foods, books, hobbies, and tiny shards of personality they stumble upon in the larger anecdotes. Hakyeon shows Taekwoon how to make candles and Taekwoon teaches him how to dribble a soccer ball. As the weather grows warmer, they spend more time outdoors, taking walks and enjoying the flowers and Hakyeon thinks he would be satisfied taking a slice out of time and curl up inside it forever, but time moves on its own and the seasons pass on their own, until they reach summer.

It all comes to a head one morning in the second week of June when Sanghyuk comes bursting into the flower shop screaming at the top of his lungs.

“I got in!” he yells, and Hakyeon can’t even get in a word of congratulations edgewise because Hongbin is bursting through the door right after him, looking extremely pissed at having run after the long-legged boy.

“I got in,” he repeats, voice thick, and Hakyeon realizes that he sounds like he is about to cry. He doesn’t, in the end, but Hakyeon keeps a hand on his phone, ready to click the camera app at a moment’s notice just in case.

It’s only later, after Jaehwan has come too and everyone has cried a bit that Hongbin drops the bomb: “So when are you planning on telling Taekwoon-hyung?”

\--

Taekwoon hasn’t seen Sanghyuk for a week. He hadn’t thought much of the boy’s absence until about the third day, when he spotted him sitting at one of the tables in the café and realized that it had been three days since Sanghyuk had last raided their pantry.

Three days longer than normal.

By the seventh day, Taekwoon knows something is wrong. He’s texted Sanghyuk telling him he has leftovers in his fridge, that it’s kimchi fried rice, and that it’s waiting in the fridge specially for him. No reply.

[6:38pm] Taekwoon: is hyuk with you right now

[9:04pm] Jaehwan: no

[9:06pm] Taekwoon: do you know where he is

[9:07pm]: Jaehwan: idk

[9:08pm] Jaehwan: out with hongbin maybe?

He tries his roommate next.

“Where’s Sanghyuk?”

Hongbin doesn’t answer, staring hard at his book.

Taekwoon frowns. “Have you seen him today?”

Hongbin shrugs.

“Where?”

Another shrug. “I think he was at Jaehwan-hyung’s place.”

“Huh.” Taekwoon says slowly. “That’s weird, because Jaehwan just texted me that he was with you.”

Hongbin stares at his book for a long time.

“What’s going on?”

He only receives a sigh in reply.

“Is he in trouble?”

“Not yet.” Vague. “Ask him. It’s about time he told you.”

Taekwoon fights a sense of mounting panic. “He’s not answering my texts.”

“I’ll call him.” Hongbin rolls his eyes, picking up his phone. “Hyuk, this is ridiculous. Taekwoon-hyung is waiting for you at home. Yes, he knows. No, I didn’t tell him. Yeah. Hurry.” He hangs up, opening the book again. “He’s on his way.”

The door opens again half an hour later and Sanghyuk steps in with a rush of warm, sticky air. Taekwoon knows from years of experience he shouldn’t ask right away, but he doesn’t really care, because he’s feeling stubborn.

“Welcome home. I hear there’s something you haven’t been telling me?”

Sanghyuk ignores him, swerving out of the living room and into the kitchen.

“Do you have any leftovers?”

“Kimchi fried rice, second shelf to the left,” Hongbin calls.

Sanghyuk takes out the plastic container of rice and pops it into the microwave.

“So?” Taekwoon stands at the counter, eyebrow raised. Sanghyuk doesn’t look him in the face. “Are you going to tell me about this secret?”

The microwave whirs into the silence. Hongbin flips a page.

“Did you break up with Jaehwan?” The microwave beeps and Sanghyuk goes to retrieve the rice. “Are you in trouble?”

“No! I’m not in trouble!” Sanghyuk finally bursts, short and quick. He grips a spoon in his hand, poised directly over his food. His gaze darts left and right. “I uh—I applied for a university.”

Taekwoon frowns. “You’re already in university.”

“No, not like that.” Sanghyuk sets the spoon down with a clank and runs a hand through his hair, huffing impatiently. “I applied to transfer to another architecture program outside the city.”

After a moment, he looks up at Taekwoon expectantly, face twisted with anticipation.

“You applied for a university outside the city,” Taekwoon says slowly, feeling a little dizzy.

“Yeah,” Sanghyuk nods. He bites his lip. “It’s one of the best programs in the nation. I can get transfer credit, too. I’ll still graduate on track and—”

“No.”

Sanghyuk gapes. “What?”

“I said no.” Taekwoon repeats.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Sanghyuk seethes. His eyes flash.

Hongbin shuts his book closed with a loud thump, rising from the couch and walking back to his room without a word. His door closes with a loud click in the ensuing silence.

“I don’t think moving to the outside would be a good idea,” Taekwoon says. He fights down bile rising in the back of his throat. “Sanghyuk, what were you _thinking?_ ”

“I was thinking that I’m an adult,” Sanghyuk says, and his voice is getting louder now. “I was _thinking_ that I wanted to get a proper architecture degree in a proper architecture program that I _deserve_ to be in!”

“You’re missing the biggest part of this,” Taekwoon bites back. “It’s a school _outside the city_. Do you know how dangerous that could be for you? You won’t be able to survive out there!”

“I can’t believe you think that’s the biggest part,” Sanghyuk cries. “Don’t you think it’s important that I got into this program? It’s the best in the country. Who cares if I’ve got a curse? This is a once in a lifetime chance, hyung!”

“You can’t leave,” Taekwoon says firmly. “Having a curse is a big deal, and they’ll know you’re different. You won’t make it.”

“How can you say that before I’ve even tried?”

“Because we both know someone who has.”

Sanghyuk’s face twists. “I’m not Hakyeon-hyung, and Hakyeon-hyung isn’t me. He was young, hyung! He was in high school.”

“You’re young, too,” Taekwoon says, and he can feel his stomach sink as he sees Sanghyuk’s eyes have begun to shine. “I know Hakyeon isn’t you, but I don’t want you to go through the same thing he did. It hurt him, Sanghyuk.”

“I know.” Sanghyuk’s face is crumpling. “I _know_. But you know what? Hakyeon-hyung was the one who told me he thought I should go for it. He _wants_ me to go.”

Taekwoon can feel the breath leave his chest like he’s been punched.

“I’m leaving,” Sanghyuk mutters, scrubbing at his eyes.

“I’m not done talking to you!” Taekwoon’s anger spikes, and he lets it out in a forceful breath, even though he knows Sanghyuk will retort back with more barbs.

“I’m not obligated to wait around for you to finish yelling,” Sanghyuk spits. “It’s not like you’re my _brother_ or anything.”

He’s out the door in a flash, striding down the hall with long steps. The quiet that he leaves behind is thick and familiar, and Taekwoon can’t stand it. In the end, Taekwoon washes his face, brushes his teeth, and waits for something to break the silence.

He doesn’t have to wait long; there is a knock on the door soon, and Jaehwan is standing on his doorstep.

“Have you eaten dinner yet?”

Jaehwan shakes his head.

It’s like watching a disaster unfold in a movie—Taekwoon knows that at the end of Jaehwan’s visit, there will be more silence to greet him, but he forges on anyway.

First, though, he makes them both ramen, cracking two eggs and pouring a handful of chopped green onions into the soup like his mother taught him. Jaehwan sets the table as he cooks, putting out a pair of bowls and chopsticks.

“I know why you said what you said,” Jaehwan sighs when they’re sitting across from each other, steaming noodles and a table between them. “But you’re both so hotheaded about everything, and we thought something like this would happen. I’m sorry for lying to you about the whole thing.”

The implication of exclusion in the _we_ stings. “How is Sanghyuk?”

“He’s really upset,” Jaehwan says. “Taekwoon, you know he’s not a child. He thinks you’re being too controlling.”

“Do you think the same?”

“Yeah,” Jaehwan admits. “I do.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Taekwoon buries his face in his hands. “He’s still young. I don’t want him to suffer alone, Jaehwan.”

“It’s a risk, but he’s perfectly aware of the consequences. I’ve come to know so much more about him in the past few months, Taekwoon,” Jaehwan says, face softening. “And he won’t be alone, you know. He has his friends and family to support him.”

Was Taekwoon the only person who hadn’t known? “You’ve already talked about this.”

Jaehwan nods. “I told him I would always be there for him.”

“You’ll be there for him,” Taekwoon repeats. “It’s going to be different without him living close enough to see him every day, Jaehwan. You’ve only just started dating a few months ago. Are you really okay with entering a long-distance relationship with him?”

“Of course,” Jaehwan says firmly. “This is something important to him. I like him enough to do this. Besides, I won’t be the only one who has to sacrifice time together.” Something aches in Taekwoon’s chest as he realizes Jaehwan is serious. He had known before, but it is different seeing Jaehwan expressing his dedication for real.

“So what are you going to do when it becomes too hard not to see each other in person? Are you going to move out with him? Follow him to the city?”

Taekwoon knows it is the wrong thing to say, even as his mouth keeps moving. He had always been too impulsive, too easy to anger, and he realizes belatedly that Sanghyuk probably learned it from him. There’s no stopping him now, though, and the fear of not being able to control his voice, the fear of not being able to stop talking and above all else the fear of loneliness and silence is overwhelming.

“It must be nice, being able to live in the outside without anyone questioning you. You’d blend right in, and leave all of us behind.”

 Jaehwan’s expression shutters. His eyes are steely as he sets his chopsticks down with a clatter. He stands.

“That was uncalled for.”

It seems Taekwoon’s mouth has finally caught up to his brain, because it suddenly stops working, and he can’t find anymore words to throw.

“I’m not going to leave, not for Sanghyuk, not for _anyone_.” Jaehwan’s voice has begun to shake, but his face is hard, harder than Taekwoon has ever seen. “This city is my home, Taekwoon, and I’ve built my life in it. I belong here, even if some people think I don’t, and it shouldn’t make a difference whether I have a curse or not.”

For the second time that night, Taekwoon lets the silence press down on him as the door to his apartment clicks shut.

\--

The year that Taekwoon lived with Jaehwan was marked by a series of remarkable events, some imprinted more freshly into his memory than others. It was the year that Taekwoon received his Bachelor’s degree and got accepted for his first full-time job. It was the year of the Burning Noodle Incident, which cemented Taekwoon’s and Jaehwan’s mutual decision to search for new roommates the next year, both citing personal health as the primary reason. It was the year Taekwoon came out to his parents, and it was the year the Census Bureau published new findings for the first time in over fifteen years.

The news was not good news. At least, not for some.

That year was the year that the first child of cursed parents to be born outside the city turned five. On her birthday, her parents found her speaking in fluent Russian at the dining table, occasionally sprinkling in a smattering of Spanish and Tagalog. That year, there were forty more children who reached the age of curse manifestation, their parents cursed and luck’s children alike. The only feature in common about all of their births were that their parents had made the journey to the outside in the chance that their children might be curse-free. They all turned five and their parents reported their findings to the Census Bureau as requested.

The findings were as follows: any child of cursed parentage, whether they were born in the city or in the outside, will be cursed on their fifth birthday. The birth of a second-generation luck’s child would require, first, for both parents to be luck’s children and second, for the child to have been born outside the city.

The consequences were as follows: the number of luck’s children would dwindle over the years, as the first generation of cursed grew old and passed. There would be no new luck’s children born of cursed parents, and now that the information was out, no parent would willingly give their child the naked shame of being a stark, boring outsider among thousands of unique abilities.

Jaehwan cried when he got home, and Taekwoon would later remember that year as the year that he had first watched his best friend shed tears.

“You’ll leave me behind,” Jaehwan had whispered, voice broken and rough with fear. “Everyone older will die and eventually, there won’t be anyone else like me.”

That year, Taekwoon made the realization that he had missed back in middle school, when he had first heard of luck’s children: in a city with a population of 1.5 million people, 5,000 was a pitifully small number.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hongbin and Wonsik correct a few misunderstandings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for more arguments, negative/self-deprecating speech, and a very unfavorable opinion on marriage. also hongbin breaks things and wonsik gets slapped.

The first time Jaehwan invited Hongbin to his workplace, he sat with Taekwoon at the table nearest the pick-up station. Jaehwan promised to sneak them lattes for free, but they had to buy the lemon meringue pies themselves. Wonsik had come out to serve them, headphones jammed over his ears, sparing only a brief smile and nod for Taekwoon before he left.

“I’m going to date that boy,” Hongbin announced the moment Wonsik disappeared into the back.

Taekwoon had choked on his coffee, eyeing his roommate with poorly-concealed disbelief but lo and behold, three months later, he walked in on them with hands down each other’s pants on the living room carpet (he got it bleached afterwards).

In Taekwoon’s personal opinion, everything Hongbin does can be attributed to one singular trait that defines an alarmingly large part of his personality. Lee Hongbin, Taekwoon thinks, is the most stubborn person in the world.

“Give up,” Taekwoon told him when he found that Hongbin intended to date Wonsik for real. “He’s not someone you can make empty promises to.”

“When I say I’ll do something, I never mess around,” Hongbin had retorted, eyes narrowed with challenge.

Taekwoon believed him.

Back when Jaehwan had introduced Hongbin to Taekwoon as a potential roommate towards the end of his last year in university, his first thought had been, _Those dimples can’t be real._

His second had been, _Did I just hear him say that?_ in response to Hongbin’s comment, “Ew, what the fuck is wrong with his hair?”

“He’s never lived outside of his parents’ home,” Jaehwan had explained. “Medical complications.”

“My curse is related to my blood,” Hongbin had stated, as calmly as someone would say, _I have asthma_. “I can’t get transfusions, so I have to be careful about some things.”

“A delicate flower,” Jaehwan had snorted.

Taekwoon could see, even without Hongbin’s colorful reply, that the phrase in no way described him.

“Anyway, you’ll be my first roommate,” Hongbin had said, eyeing Taekwoon up and down as if picking him apart in the worst way possible.

“What makes you think I’m going to be your roommate?” Taekwoon had replied, still caught up in Hongbin’s previous statement about his hair (sure, he’d been going through a shaggy phase, but he took good care of his ends when he grew it out).

“You will,” was all Hongbin retorted. He was right.

Hongbin was never affectionate, never vocal with his endearments, but Wonsik was never one to use words to express the small things. Words were for promises, and promises were something that the two of them took very, very seriously. In all the time they dated, Taekwoon never heard them utter one oath to each other, yet he never believed for a moment that they were anything but utterly smitten.

Sometimes, Taekwoon fancied he could see the words that never passed between them, present in small actions and brief touches.

 _I’m here_ , said Hongbin’s hand on Wonsik’s waist when Wonsik had to explain to someone why he always wore earphones.

 _Be careful_ , said Wonsik’s tender fingers as he dabbed disinfectant onto Hongbin’s palms on the days he came home from a long day at work with fine lines of gold tracing the papercuts in his skin.

And on the rare occasion that Taekwoon saw Hongbin’s genuine smile, dimpled and full of teeth, he thought that maybe it was large enough to fit in a wordless promise of forever.

\--

Hakyeon opens his door long past midnight to find Taekwoon, sweaty and panting and stony-faced, looming on his welcome mat. He’s dressed in sweats and an old t-shirt with only a jacket thrown haphazardly on top.

“It’s so late—”

“I heard about the transfer.”

Hakyeon sucks in a sharp breath, eyes searching Taekwoon’s expression. For once, there is nothing there to betray anything but surface-level anger. Hakyeon’s chest clenches.

He sighs and steps aside. “Come in.”

Taekwoon makes no move to get out of his doorway, arms crossed as if to protect himself.

“I trusted you.” The accusation is a stab to his chest, and he knows from Taekwoon’s face that they both know it is unfair. Nonetheless, he does not offer to retract the statement.

“I’m sorry, Taekwoon.” He blinks hard, biting his lip. “But I didn’t want to tell you before Sanghyuk was ready.”

“Was that going to happen before he got _accepted_?” Taekwoon’s tone is ruthless and biting. Hakyeon thinks of how it normally sounds, soft and soothing, and thinks that the contrast leaves him even more vulnerable as Taekwoon’s words sink, sharp and harsh, into his skin. “You know how hard it is out there, but you told him to go for it anyway. What if he gets hurt, Hakyeon?”

“I know that it hurts,” Hakyeon tries to start levelly, but his voice trembles anyway. “I know that I failed, but that was my fault. Sanghyuk isn’t me, Taekwoon. He’s brilliant and driven and smart. He deserves the chance to try.”

“Please, Hakyeon, I can’t bear to see him fall if he fails,” Taekwoon says. His voice is pleading and it tugs at Hakyeon’s chest. “Help me convince him to stay.”

“I can’t,” Hakyeon says, meeting his gaze. “I’m sorry, Taekwoon. I know firsthand how painful it is to fail, but I also know what it’s like to get one chance to achieve something big. You can’t confine him here based on hypotheticals, Taekwoon. He’ll hate you forever if you don’t let him take that chance now.”

Taekwoon’s face is stricken, as if he hadn’t expected Hakyeon to answer like that. Hakyeon clenches his teeth and looks away. He’s used to not meeting others’ expectations, but it still stings to stand before Taekwoon, with whom he has shared a part of himself that no one else has ever seen, and find that when it comes down to it, he still doesn’t understand.

“Come in,” Hakyeon says, letting a little bit of steel into his voice. He moves to the side, and Taekwoon knows, even now, upset as he is, to take the olive branch when it is offered. This time, he steps inside.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Taekwoon admits as he goes to perch on Hakyeon’s bed and crosses his legs.

“I can tell from your expression that your conversations haven’t been going well tonight,” Hakyeon says dryly, and Taekwoon winces at the bite. “You talked with Sanghyuk already?”

“And Jaehwan.”

“And now that you’ve angered both of them, you’re coming to ask me to take your side?”

Taekwoon stares down at his socked feet.

“I’m sorry, I know you’ve had a rough night,” Hakyeon sighs. “Let’s do this civilly, okay? I know we don’t agree on this topic at all, but I don’t like fighting with people, and I really don’t want to fight with you.”

Taekwoon nods. “Okay.”

“Alright then. First off, I’d like an apology for what you said earlier,” Hakyeon says coolly, standing across from him and crossing his arms. Taekwoon frowns. “I didn’t want to hear that from anyone, especially not you.”

Taekwoon winces. From his expression, he knows what Hakyeon means, the words he doesn’t say: _I’ve bared my heart for you, and you dared to use it against me_. They are an echo of Taekwoon’s own words in Hakyeon’s doorway, _I trusted you_.

“I’m sorry. It was unfair of me to say those things, and I knew they would,” Taekwoon says quietly. “I won’t do it again.”

Hakyeon sighs again, sinking down on the bed next to him and bringing his feet up to mirror Taekwoon’s position. “I know why you don’t want him to go.”

“You know more than anyone,” Taekwoon agrees. “But you told him you thought he should go, right?”

“I told him everything,” Hakyeon says, and he can’t fully keep the break out of his voice. “He was the first one to hear about everything I couldn’t tell my brother and my parents. I told him even before I told you. I thought he deserved it, given that he’d been trying to do this alone, too.”

“Thank you,” Taekwoon says.

“What did you say to him and Jaehwan?”

“A lot of things I shouldn't have,” Taekwoon admits. “I’m scared, though.” His voice grows smaller with each word until Hakyeon can barely hear him. “Some horrible part of me is scared that they’ll be able to adapt out there, and Sanghyuk will move away and take Jaehwan with him and leave me alone here.”

 _I’d still be here_ , Hakyeon doesn’t say. _Hongbin and Wonsik would be here_. He knows that’s not what Taekwoon means.

Sanghyuk and Jaehwan inhabit a special part of Taekwoon’s heart reserved for family, and Hakyeon knows how important family is to Taekwoon from the way he always bickers with Sanghyuk, from the voice he uses to answer his mother’s calls, from the bright eyes with which he stares at pictures and videos of his nephew for hours on end, tapping his arm excitedly and saying, _Hakyeon, look look—_

He knows that Sanghyuk and Jaehwan would never leave Taekwoon alone. He knows because he had the chance to leave, once, and found that the word “normal” never had real meaning, but he cannot tell Taekwoon and guarantee that they will always stay by him, no further than a thirty-minute ride by bus.

“Will you force them to stay, then?” And Hakyeon knows he has reached the end of his argument by the pained look on Taekwoon’s face. “What if Sanghyuk is miserable?”

“He’ll hate me,” Taekwoon whispers, and Hakyeon cannot do anything but wrap him in a cold hug.

A few warm tears spill onto his collarbone as he runs his fingers through Taekwoon’s hair. After a while, Hakyeon pulls away, smoothing Taekwoon’s fringe down as he goes.

“I don’t think we’re going to reach an agreement here,” he admits, and Taekwoon droops a little, but nods. Their eyes meet, each searching the other automatically for emotion, mutual understanding. “I’ve told you so much about myself and I’d like to think I know parts of you that are secret to everyone else, but in the end, we’re not the same person, and I don’t expect us to always see eye to eye on certain issues. I want you to resolve this issue with Sanghyuk, but I’m not going to help you convince him to stay.”

Taekwoon sighs. “Okay.”

He slips off the bed, walking to grab his shoes, and Hakyeon knows the action is not a brush off, but a request for personal space.

“Sorry, Taekwoon, but you’re going to have to talk with him about this,” Hakyeon tells him quietly once they’re standing face to face in the doorway. He steps back and Taekwoon makes no move to stop him. “He’s mature enough to make his own decisions, and in the end, I really can’t change anything if he wants to go.”

He shuts the door.

\--

It hurts.

Taekwoon knew it would hurt to leave and he still asked first, not in words but in actions. _I need to be alone for a while. I need to be alone so I can think._

He stands outside Hakyeon’s for a long time, waiting for the soft sound of footsteps indicating that he has left his entryway. They don’t come and even though Taekwoon can’t hear much through the wood, he can imagine that they’re breathing in tandem, still face to face.

After a while, he turns away first and makes his way down the stairs.

It hurts.

For the first time, lying at the bottom of the cliff-face and staring up, it hurts. Taekwoon had known when he let himself slip off the edge and into thin air, but now that he’s past the haze of happy disbelief and simple wonder that had smoothed over the past few months, he feels the pressing pain of unspoken emotion, another secret he has to hide. He wonders, for the first time in three months, what he might have felt if he had backed away from the edge instead of falling over with guileless trust.

Relief, maybe. Relief at safe, quiet solitude.

 _I don’t expect us to always see eye to eye on certain issues_.

It hurts to know that he can be so in love with someone, to see stars in Hakyeon’s eyes and find comfort in his cold and feel endless waves of affection for his smile, but he will never know Hakyeon in his entirety, inside and out. In time, without the shadow of conflict hovering over them, Taekwoon thinks the knowledge that he can always learn more about Hakyeon will excite him and send thrills down his back.

It will one day make him indescribably happy to think that he might gather handfuls of Hakyeon’s facets for the rest of his life, treasuring each one and polishing them to tuck into his heart until it is bursting with memories, but now, the thought weighs down on his steps as he walks home in the dark. There will never be someone to know Taekwoon completely, and there will be parts of him that will spend eternity in solitude, waiting forever in the corner of his brain but buried too deep for even Hakyeon to excavate.

He comes home to the dark stillness of early morning and falls onto his bed, exhausted.

\--

Taekwoon goes to work the next morning without coffee and without a tie.

When Eunkwang frowns, he just growls, “Woke up late this morning.”

To his credit, Eunkwang doesn’t ask for further details.

When he gets home from work in the evening, he finds Wonsik and Hongbin sitting at the kitchen table. At the click of the door, they both turn to stare at him.

Hongbin speaks first.  “Hyung, you’re back. Can you leave for a while? We’re having a talk.”

Wonsik winces.

Taekwoon sighs.

“So I was discussing Sanghyuk’s transfer with Wonsik,” Hongbin shoots a glare at his boyfriend, “and we decided it would be best to talk it out first, before we said anything to you.”

Taekwoon raises an eyebrow.

“Wonsik,” Hongbin bites out, “agrees with your views on the matter.”

“My views,” Taekwoon repeats slowly.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea for him to go,” Wonsik admits, folding his hands in his lap. “I know we’ve all had this talk about whether or not he’s an adult, but I just think his safety is an issue out there.”

“You’re both missing the point here.” Hongbin throws his hands up. “Whether or not you’re comfortable with it, it’s his decision to make.”

“But I also can’t just watch him potentially ruin his life and not do anything about it,” Wonsik argues.

“It’s not about permission; he doesn’t need your approval to do something he wants.”

Taekwoon holds up a hand. “I’m going to my room. Let me know when you’re done.”

“Alright,” Hongbin says, voice hard as he keeps his gaze trained on Wonsik.

“I just want him to be safe,” Wonsik says softly, and the words are all gentle reassurance, at odds with Hongbin’s sharp edges.

Taekwoon twists his lips at the irony as he shuts his door as quietly as he can. It’s his turn to excuse himself from an impending argument tonight. The murmur of voices hardly passes through the walls, and he leans back on his bed, letting the tension in the wordless hum wash over him.

Not ten minutes later, Taekwoon hears the crash of something shattering and he barrels out to the sight of Hongbin breathing hard, standing over shards of his ceramic mug.

He spits, cheeks glowing with anger, “You really think I’m going to move out eventually and leave you here alone?” and Taekwoon swears he is looking into a mirror as fatigue washes over Wonsik’s face.

“You think this is what people like me and Jaehwan-hyung are like? You think I’d abandon my home because I don’t pose a risk to the people around me and I can pass off as normal?” Hongbin continues, and Taekwoon can only stand in his doorway, frozen with the accusations plucked right from his own brain.

“Not everyone’s you, Wonsik! Not everyone wants to take off and leave this place forever just because they _can_.” He pauses, closing his eyes and taking a deep, shuddering breath, and Taekwoon can’t shake the feeling that he doesn’t belong here, that he doesn’t belong in this conversation. “I don’t feel the need to leave, you know. Not when I have family and friends here. Not when I have _you_ here.”

“You know that’s not something I chose,” Wonsik replies quietly, the heels of his hands digging into his eyelids.

He’s just making a point. Taekwoon knows, and so does Hongbin, but Hongbin has always been stubborn, too stubborn to let something like that go, and so he shoots a retort.

“Well, good thing I’m stuck here too, then,” he sneers, but his voice is thick and clumsy. “Good thing I’m too delicate to be able to live more than five miles from the closest hospital. Good thing I’ll always be trapped in this fucking bubble, tied to you by a shitty inconvenience of a curse.”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Wonsik says, high with frustration. “Why do you always have to twist my words like that?”

“ _I’m_ twisting _your_ words?” Hongbin shouts. “You’re the one who’s always going on about how you’re stuck here and you can’t leave. I know you hate being trapped here.”

“No, we’ve talked about this before,” Wonsik tries again, this time tinged with desperation. He’s talking too fast, the words unhindered by his normal thoughtful hesitation. “You’re not tied to me, Hongbin, and you _know_ I want to be with you. With or without this curse, I’ll always—”

His words are cut off with a ringing slap.

In the silence, Taekwoon watches the shock filter onto both their faces and the thought occurs to him that he has never seen Wonsik and Hongbin speak with anything but the utmost care to each other. Even when they fight and bicker and butt heads, each word is chosen with painstaking caution.

Wonsik stands abruptly, the blood filtering from his face.

“I need to go clear my head,” he says, movements jerky.

“You should leave,” Hongbin agrees, falling back onto his chair with a heavy thud, not looking up.

He waits until Wonsik is out the door to speak again. “Will you go home with him and make sure he’s alright?” He looks up when Taekwoon doesn’t reply. “Sanghyuk’s at Jaehwan-hyung’s place tonight, so you don’t have to worry about him.”

“And you?” Taekwoon gives him a long look. “Will you be alright?”

Hongbin stares down at the shards of the mug at his feet, face blank. “Please?”

In the end, Taekwoon doesn’t have to walk far in pursuit. Wonsik is squatting on the first landing of the stairs, his face buried in his palms.

“Hyung,” he says hoarsely, looking up when Taekwoon comes to sit beside him. “I fucked up.”

“You didn’t,” Taekwoon says. It’s a warm summer night, but Wonsik is shivering. “Do you want to go home?”

“I want to go back in,” Wonsik admits. “I want to apologize, but I don’t think Hongbin wants me in there right now.”

“Let’s get you home,” Taekwoon says softly, laying a hand on Wonsik’s back.

True to Hongbin’s word, the apartment is empty when Wonsik unlocks the door. He wanders to his room and falls on his bed as Taekwoon follows. They sit, side by side, for a long while and the silence is one that Taekwoon can bear.

With Wonsik, words will always hold too much meaning.

“It scares me,” Wonsik says finally. “I know the small promises people normally make are meaningless, but it still scares me that there’s nothing holding us together.”

“Do you really think that Hongbin doesn’t have enough love for that?”

“Love is not a promise for the future,” Wonsik says, his mouth puckering. “When Hongbin says he loves me, he means _now_. In the moment. We’ve talked about this before, and I know he means nothing more.”

“Do you really think he doesn’t want to stay with you in the future?” Taekwoon asks, because he cannot think of another question to which the answer might be no. Now is not the time to say, _I don’t understand._

They lapse into silence again as Wonsik ponders, and Taekwoon hopes his presence is enough for the moment, because he has nothing more to offer.

Finally Wonsik smiles, sad and tired. “I think I’m okay now, hyung.”

It’s close enough to the truth that Taekwoon can go to the kitchen and pour them both glasses of water.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Wonsik sighs later. He rubs his knuckles roughly into his eyes. “It’s about trust, I guess. I just want to know in words that he’s serious about us.

“But Hongbin hates lying,” he continues. “He doesn’t even want to say these kinds of things in writing. It’s because of the curse but it’s not about the curse, I guess. He thinks he’ll be breaking a promise if he says something like ‘I’ll love you always’ and then we break up in a few years.” He breaks off, sniffing. “It’s stupid. I know he loves me as much as I love him. Never mind. It’s just—words are solid, reliable. You know?”

Taekwoon knows. He knows words hold weight, for Wonsik more than anyone. He already knew that there are a thousand ways to say _I’ll love you always_ without words, but he learns now that Hongbin has never said that phrase once.

He already knows, but he reflects again that Hongbin is the most stubborn person in the world.

\--

Taekwoon finds Hongbin sitting on the couch in the dark. He supposes it’s better than behind the locked door of his bedroom.

Groping around a bit in the dark, Taekwoon flicks on the light. He looks again and realizes he can see orange and brown smudges glimmering under Hongbin’s eyes.

Hongbin looks up, eyes flat, when Taekwoon sits down next to him.

“I’m an idiot, hyung.”

“Maybe not,” Taekwoon says, and it’s as gentle as he has ever mustered for his caustic roommate. “I know how devoted you are to each other.”

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Hongbin sighs, closing his eyes and leaning back. “I know he’s always been insecure that we never say these kinds of things to each other like normal couples. Wonsik is too attached to me. Someday, he’s going to start saying things he doesn’t mean, and that’s too dangerous for him.”

“For you, the concept of forever is more concrete than for anyone else,” Taekwoon tells him.

“You really think that?”

“I do.”

“Just a few words out loud, and eternity is real, right?” His smile is sharp, bitter.

Taekwoon doesn’t reply. He waits.

Hongbin laughs humorlessly. “Hyung, did you know? Wonsik and I agreed that we’re never going to get married.”

Taekwoon stills. “What?”

“It’s an oath. A binding contract. I don’t want that for us, whether or not we say it aloud. If there’s anything other than our feelings keeping us together, we’ll become miserable.” He sighs. “Promises are too easy to break. I told myself a long time ago that I wouldn’t tell Wonsik, in speech or in writing or in gestures or anything, that I wanted to be with him forever.”

“Do you think you can really not love him someday?”

“Truthfully?” Hongbin turns, looking Taekwoon in the eye. “Yes. It’s not definite that we’ll break up, but that’s exactly why I don’t want to promise him anything. If one of us stops loving the other, then we split. I mean sure,” he shrugs, “I _want_ to be with him for the rest of our lives, but will it actually happen? I don’t know.”

Hongbin laughs again, and the sound is wet with tears. “It’s useless to define things in terms of forever. Forever is a process, not a destination. More often than not, it’s a process that breaks off in the middle. Wonsik knows how dangerous promises can be more than anyone else, and I would never want to manipulate him like that, whether I imply it through words or through actions. Even if there is no magic, the act of giving him a wedding ring is something that ties him to me for the rest of our lives. For other people it’s a symbol, but for Wonsik it’ll always be something worse.”

_It’s because of the curse, but it’s not about the curse, I guess._

“I’m sorry,” Taekwoon exhales in a loud rush of air. “I thought—”

“You thought promises held special meaning for us,” Hongbin finishes for him, soft and not unkind. “They do, just not in the way most people assume.”

“Then there’s nothing binding the two of you together,” Taekwoon says.

“Of course not,” Hongbin agrees. “We choose to be together. It’s how most marriages and couples work. They choose to spend the years together, or they choose to get a divorce or a break-up. I wanted to give him something built on trust, you know?” Hongbin sighs, puffing air into his fringe. “Of course if you ask either of us now, we would be content to stay together for the rest of our lives, but there’s nothing anyone can say as to how we’ll change in the next ten years.

“It doesn’t matter. Even after the feeling of love wears off and we get tired of fucking around like twenty-year-olds, I think I’ll still probably want to be with him. We might decide otherwise one day, and there’s nothing I can do about that. As I am now, though, I would never leave Wonsik. He knows that, and I know that he feels the same.”

It’s not a promise, but Taekwoon senses it’s the closest Hongbin will ever get to one.

“Then what will you do now?”

Hongbin gives him a wry smile. “The same as I always do when we fight. It happens a lot more often than you’d think. I’ll wait for him to call when he’s ready and we’ll talk and maybe reconcile and maybe break up.” His voice wavers despite the nonchalant way he throws the words.

“And is that enough?”

It can’t be enough. There is no guarantee, no reassurance that says, _We’ll be okay._ The thin, tentative thread of something that is always ready to break can’t possibly be enough.

“Do I have a choice?” Hongbin’s voice breaks, but his face is hard. “I love him and I want to be with him today and tomorrow and maybe the day after, too. Most of the time, he feels the same. Some days, it’s more enough than others, but it’s the most that I can give him and it’s the most I can receive.”

Taekwoon doesn’t understand but he thinks he begins to see when Wonsik finally calls as the weak light of early dawn leaks through the windows. It’s in the way Hongbin slumps with relief onto the couch, curled into himself as he clutches his phone to his ear, and it’s in the way he murmurs the most painfully careful string of words into the speaker, softer than Taekwoon has ever heard.

“I love you,” Taekwoon catches when he gets up to leave. “I don’t want to promise you anything, but I love you all the same.”

As Taekwoon listens, he imagines he can hear the implicit words as well. _I trust you. There is nothing else I can say, but I trust you._

As the first strips of dawn paint the sky, Taekwoon takes the first bus with only his wallet, phone, and keys in the pocket of his sweats. He rides past downtown, past his workplace, until he reaches Jaehwan’s apartment.

Sanghyuk opens the door when he knocks. His expression clouds when he sees Taekwoon, and Jaehwan walks up behind him.

“Hyung,” Sanghyuk starts tentatively. “Are you here to talk about the transfer?”

Taekwoon nods.

His face falls.

“This program means a lot to me,” Sanghyuk says cautiously. “I’m serious about—”

“I’m sorry.” Taekwoon directs the statement at the both of them. “I was worried and insecure and I just wanted to protect you, but I said a lot of hurtful things, and I shouldn’t have tried to tie you down.”

He takes a deep breath. “I’ll be worried whatever you do, but I love you and I know you’re level-headed and ambitious. I’ll support you as best as I can. I just want you to know I’ll be here whenever you want to come home.”

He only wheezes a little when Sanghyuk leaps out of the doorway and envelopes him into a bone-crushing hug.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sanghyuk goes on a road trip and Hakyeon drives.

“What changed your mind?”

Taekwoon stares out at the bleeding dawn from Jaehwan’s balcony as his best friend settles next to him, propping his legs on the railing. Sanghyuk has left for home and Seokjin and Junghwan are still asleep, so it’s just Taekwoon and Jaehwan in the calm stillness of the early morning.

He shrugs. “I listened to Hongbin and Wonsik fight.”

“Sounds enlightening,” Jaehwan yawns. “But also what the fuck?”

“You know that album you keep from your graduation trip?”

Jaehwan nods slowly.

“You told me once that you keep the other half blank because you wanted to go again.”

“I’m thinking about it,” Jaehwan admits. “One of these days, when I get a day off.”

“I know you only mean it as a vacation or a sightseeing trip or something, but I’ve always thought about how easy it was for you to just get up and drive out and find a new life somewhere else.” Taekwoon takes a deep breath. “I used to get so caught up worrying about how easy it would be for you to disappear, I never thought that you might not be desperate to leave.”

“Are you desperate to leave?”

Taekwoon thinks for a while, until the noise of morning traffic start to filter into the air.

“No,” he decides. “I don’t suppose I’ve thought of it as a choice before. I’m stuck here because of my voice, so I assumed everyone who could go would want to leave immediately. I guess it’s still my home, though.”

“It’s the same for me,” Jaehwan says. “I guess I could move away in theory, but I don’t want to. I built myself a life in this city, and I like it here.”

“Yeah.” Taekwoon folds his hands in his lap. “Sorry for all those things I said. I didn’t mean to imply that you don’t belong here.”

“I know,” Jaehwan smiles wryly. “Thanks.”

They sit for a while, staring at Jaehwan’s toes wriggling on the railing, before Jaehwan says, “Don’t you have work?”

Taekwoon checks his watch and sighs. “I’ll call in sick. I haven’t slept all night.”

“You must be getting old,” Jaehwan remarks. “Jung Taekwoon, the king of under-eye circles, can’t handle one all-nighter?”

“That was in _college_.” Taekwoon swats half-heartedly at the back of Jaehwan’s head. “I’m old now. Besides, half the time I only stayed up because you played terrible pop music too late.”

“Everyone thought I was rooming with a serial killer,” Jaehwan shrieks with laughter. “And your hair looked like you hadn’t remembered to cut it since middle school. It was _awful_.”

“I took good care of it,” Taekwoon mutters under his breath.

“And then Hongbin made you cut it off when you started rooming together,” Jaehwan snorts. “He’s a great roommate, in my opinion.”

“He is.” Taekwoon groans as a thought occurs to him. “Fuck. I’ll probably have to start looking for a new roommate. Now that Hyuk’s leaving, Hongbin will want to move in with Wonsik.”

“God, why,” Jaehwan wrinkles his nose in mock disgust. “I don’t know how Sanghyuk’s been living with him for so long. His snoring is loud enough to cause an avalanche.”

They laugh and talk for a while about trivial things and it’s nice to just sit there and let Jaehwan fill in the silence.

\--

Hakyeon comes to the belated realization that he’s never been to Taekwoon’s house as he raises his hand to knock on the door. He pauses, bites his lip, and lowers his fist.

He’s not particularly nervous, but he can’t help but think of the way he had stood in his own doorway two nights ago, waiting for Taekwoon to leave.

_I need to be alone for a while._

Before he can muster the courage, the door swings open to none other than Taekwoon himself, complete with soft sweats, unruly hair, and the faintest shadow of stubble on his chin.

They gape at each other for a bit.

“Hakyeon,” Taekwoon finally says. Hakyeon winces at the stilted way he speaks, as if he thinks the tightness in Hakyeon’s chest doesn’t ease just at the lack of malice in his voice.

Hakyeon clears his throat, hating how hesitant he sounds. “I heard you called in sick.” He licks his lips and holds up the plastic convenient store bag in his hand. “I brought medicine? And some groceries and stuff.”

“I don’t need medicine,” Taekwoon says, sounding a bit lost. “I took a day off because I was up all night. Sorry.”

“Oh. That’s alright, I can take it back for myself.” Somewhere in the back of his brain, Hakyeon registers himself speaking too quickly. He resists the urge to turn on his heel and leave. “Why didn’t you get any sleep?”

“Hongbin and Wonsik got into a fight.” Taekwoon pauses, looking as uncertain as Hakyeon feels. “Actually, do you want to come in?” He glances down at the plastic bag still dangling uselessly from Hakyeon’s hand. “I’m about to make dinner.”

“Yes.” Hakyeon swallows, testing his throat as the tension in his spine slowly eases. “Okay.”

Taekwoon and Hongbin’s apartment is decently sized for a place so close to downtown. The kitchen, especially, is unusually large, with polished stainless steel appliances. Hakyeon doesn’t doubt that the granite countertop played a large part in Taekwoon’s decision to pick that particular place when he had started rooming with Hongbin.

“You have a nice kitchen.”

Taekwoon hums in agreement, pleased. “Yours is big enough for functional use, right?”

“The attic’s pretty cramped,” Hakyeon admits. “It’s smaller than a typical studio, but I guess it’s convenient.”

Taekwoon knots a striped gray apron around his waist, peering into Hakyeon’s plastic bag to survey the ingredients.

Hakyeon laughs despite himself. At Taekwoon’s questioning look, he explains, “Normally, I’m the one wearing the apron when we’re together.”

Taekwoon scowls and lifts an onion. “Is there anything you don’t eat?”

“What were you planning on making?”

“I don’t know.” Taekwoon inspects the onion before moving on to a piece of ginger. “With the stuff that you brought, I could make _budae jjigae_. Is that okay?”

“Sounds great.” Hakyeon hovers behind the counter. “Do you need help?”

“Chop the onions for me, please,” Taekwoon says, pointing.

They settle into a comfortable lull until _jjigae_ is set on the stove to boil and Taekwoon is washing his utility chopsticks and throwing away ginger cuttings. Hakyeon settles at the kitchen table and watches as he unties his apron and folds it on the counter before settling down across from Hakyeon.

He scrolls through his phone for a while, occasionally glancing up but making no move to speak, until Hakyeon realizes that he’s waiting for a sign to continue their conversation from before.

The remaining tension drains from his shoulders and he prompts, “So Wonsik and Hongbin got into a fight?”

Taekwoon sighs, pocketing his phone. “Yeah. Over Hyuk.”

Hakyeon finds himself holding his breath.

“Wonsik agreed with me about making him stay. They were talking about it when I got home, and they started yelling soon after. I got the chance to talk with both of them last night.” Taekwoon bites his lip, hesitating. “And I think I’m starting to understand why you and Jaehwan and Hongbin think he should go.”

Hakyeon feels lightheaded. He can’t help the smile from spreading across his face, wide and relieved and proud. “Really?”

Taekwoon nods, the corners of his eyes quirking at Hakyeon’s expression. “You’re happy.”

“I am,” Hakyeon agrees. He unsuccessfully tries to temper the smile by pursing his lips. “I was a little scared you would hate me for meddling with Sanghyuk’s decision,” he admits. “I’m not family, and I haven’t even known you all for that long. I don’t have any right to be encouraging Sanghyuk to do anything.”

Taekwoon bites his lip, a crease forming on his forehead. After a moment, he reaches across the table, clamping a hand over Hakyeon’s fingers. He works his jaw for a minute and Hakyeon waits, tamping down the tiny sliver of anxiety wiggling into his chest. After a moment, he catches Hakyeon’s eye.

“I know you,” he says simply, but his slim eyes are piercing with sincerity.

Hakyeon swallows, but the happiness still swells up in his chest. “Did you tell him?”

Taekwoon nods, lips softening into a smile. “This morning.”

His hand relaxes but stays, warm and solid, over Hakyeon’s. It’s summer and his hands are hot from washing the dishes and Hakyeon normally shies away from skin-to-skin contact during the hotter months because it’s taxing enough just to go outside, but he find that he doesn’t really mind. He can’t feel the humid air of the apartment from outside his bubble of cold air, but the prickle of warmth over his fingers anchors him to the outside, to the apartment, and to Taekwoon.

“Really?” Hakyeon lights up and before he can think about it, he’s reaching over the table to ruffle Taekwoon’s hair and pat his cheek. Two points of contact. “I’m proud of you, Taekwoonie!”

He delights at the rush of heat and blood in the cheek under his palm, laughing a little at how disgruntled Taekwoon looks at the pet name and the childish pats to his face. Still, he doesn’t pull away, closing his eyes and submitting himself grumpily to Hakyeon’s teasing squeezes.

To Hakyeon’s surprise, as he pulls away, Taekwoon tilts his head ever so slightly, chasing his touch. He blinks his eyes open, reddening a little more. “Your hand is cool. It’s nice.”

“Aw, Taekwoonie, so cute,” Hakyeon croons, laughing even harder as Taekwoon frowns. He charges around the table, clamping onto Taekwoon with such force they almost bowl over the side of the chair.

“Careful,” Taekwoon scolds as Hakyeon limpets onto his side, digging the crown of his head into the side of his neck.

It’s summer and it’s hot in Taekwoon’s apartment and Hakyeon would normally be hiding in full blast of the air conditioning in his apartment, gnawing on popsicles and spoonfuls of ice cream. Instead, he finds himself clinging onto Taekwoon, watching with wonder as his skin heats with flushed embarrassment under cold fingers, and a simple _I know you_ turning over and over in Hakyeon’s brain until he feels lightheaded.

\--

The thing about moving is that there are logistics. For the first time in years, Taekwoon finds himself poring over dorms, meal plans, apartments, rent prices, class schedules, and every other bit of information he and Sanghyuk’s parents can scrounge about Sanghyuk’s new university and its surrounding area.

“What if he can’t cook for himself,” Sanghyuk’s mother frets as she scrolls through a forum lamenting the quality of the dining hall food. “What if he _starves_?”

“He’s been living away from home for a while now,” Taekwoon points out.

“But his current roommate cooks for a living! Who knows how he’ll do on his own.”

Taekwoon bites down on his lip to keep from reminding her that Sanghyuk isn’t a freshman anymore. Just two days before, he had walked in on the boy placing a hardboiled egg in a saucepan over the stove, shell and all.

Taekwoon can (barely) handle fifteen hours of fussing over which bedsheets to buy and which dorm has the largest showers and which buildings have the best central heating, but there’s more. The third week after Sanghyuk finalizes his transfer plans, Hongbin breaks the news to Taekwoon over breakfast.

“I’m moving in with Wonsik when Hyuk leaves.” He digs into his bowl and lifts out a chunk of rice, chewing casually. “So you should probably find another roommate.”

Taekwoon resists the urge to stab Hongbin in the eye with his chopsticks. He takes a deep breath. “Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” Hongbin gives him a funny look. “We’ve been dating for years. I think it’s a good time to move in with each other.”

“Isn’t his snoring loud?” Taekwoon asks, a little desperate.

“Well, yeah, but I’m going to have to get used to it eventually,” Hongbin rolls his eyes, cheeks darkening slightly. “We can’t live apart forever, right?”

Taekwoon just stares, speechless.

“Anyway, I have to go, hyung,” he says, shoveling the last bit of rice in his smug face and not quite meeting Taekwoon’s eye. “I have a date today.”

Taekwoon wants to scream, but that’s not an option, so he waits to let out a frustrated huff later on Hakyeon’s couch. They’ve got plates balanced on their knees, leftovers from the previous night’s dinner, where Hakyeon had gotten overexcited over a supermarket sale and bought too many eggs.

“You could just get another place for yourself,” Hakyeon points out.

“Even studios near downtown are expensive nowadays,” Taekwoon makes a face. “Not everyone can move into the attic over their family-owned workplace.”

Hakyeon pouts. “This place is really small, if you haven’t noticed.” He waves his hands to encompass the entire space, including the way the bed nearly blocked the closet door from opening, the lack of table in the room, and the squeeze of their knees, pressed together to fit onto the tiny couch. “It’s barely enough for one person, but now I have more guests, it’s a starting to be a tight fit.”

Taekwoon shifts guiltily, crossing his legs and repositioning his plate so it balances on the raised knee. Hakyeon laughs and relaxes so their thighs are touching again.

“Thanks.” He bumps Taekwoon’s leg thoughtfully, not hard enough to jostle his food. “I like that you’re always here, though. It gets a little quiet by myself, sometimes. I got used to living with roommates after college.”

“You had roommates?”

“You’ve seen their pictures before.” Hakyeon nudges him again. “You know, the guys I went on that road trip with?”

Taekwoon remembers postcards and photographs and pressed leaves and petals tucked in a shoebox in Hakyeon’s closet. He remembers another younger Hakyeon, not quite untroubled, but comfortable enough to smile and laugh and take silly photos with two unfamiliar boys.

“I lived with them for five years after college,” Hakyeon says, his voice far away. He blinks, eyes refocusing.

“You still talk with them?”

Hakyeon shakes his head. “I thought it would be natural to just lose contact with the outside after moving back. It’s not like they can visit me here, and it’s weird for me to be leaving so much.”

“Why?”

Hakyeon looks up, confused. “Why what?”

“Why is it weird?” Taekwoon shrugs, intentionally casual. “Right after high school, Jaehwan’s parents took him to see the place he was born. People leave the city sometimes. I think your friends would like it if you went to see them once in a while. You look like you were really close back then. Also,” He looks down at his lap, blurting out blindly, “if you don’t want to live here alone, you could move into Hongbin’s room. At my place, you know.”

He looks up. Hakyeon stares back at him, wide-eyed.

“Sorry, forget I said that,” Taekwoon mutters, feeling a flush building up in his cheeks. “It was an impulsive thought. You don’t have to pay rent here, and it’s as close as you can get to your workplace. It’s—”

“You mean it?” The corner of Hakyeon’s mouth begins to curl up.

Taekwoon flushes. “Yes.”

“Okay,” Hakyeon says easily. “I can probably convert this place into extra storage space or something.”

“You’re really okay with it, then?” Taekwoon finds himself mirroring Hakyeon’s smile. “I think I’d like living with you.”

“Yes.” Hakyeon clasps his hands, and Taekwoon feels like he is about to burst at the unexpected simplicity of everything. “Of course, there are things I need to take care of first, but yes. I want to live with you.”

In the end, Sanghyuk leaves on a bright day at the end of August, having bid his family goodbye earlier that morning. The clear sky is blue enough to make Taekwoon’s eyes hurt. They gather at the gate, Jaehwan’s musty old car idling by the side of the road as they wish the boy good luck and safe travels, one by one.

With a wide smile stretched over his face and the sliver of noonday shadow from the wall looming overhead, Sanghyuk looks impossibly small. Taekwoon tears up just a little bit.

“Take care,” he says when it’s his turn to wrap him in a hug. “Don’t bother Hakyeon too much and be responsible with your studies.”

“I’ve been in college before, hyung,” Sanghyuk groans, but tightens his arms ever so slightly. After a moment, he draws back, the grin back at full strength.

 _He’s so much taller than me now_ , Taekwoon thinks, dazed, and then he’s slipping away to embrace Wonsik.

He spends the longest with Jaehwan, one hand brushing his hip and the other lifting to cradle his neck as their heads bend together with one last whispered conversation. He ends with a lingering kiss, gentle enough that Taekwoon has to look away. Then, he’s throwing the passenger door open and jumping into the car, waving a lanky arm out the window as Hakyeon climbs in the other side.

Taekwoon waits at the gate until the car fades into a speck on the horizon.

“You could have gone with them,” he murmurs to Jaehwan as they turn to leave. “You still need to fill the other half of that album, right?”

“I guess, but it’s fine. There’s no rush.” Jaehwan shrugs. “Besides, some trips are better when they’re taken alone.”

\--

After the city walls have long faded out of sight, the car settles into silence. Hakyeon puts on some music from his phone, letting the soft voices fill the gaps between his thoughts as he watches the road. Slowly, as they edge out from the city, the number of other cars increases, the dead emptiness melting into familiar traffic.

Sanghyuk stares out the window, curiosity slowly souring into tension and troubled mulling.

“You okay there?” Hakyeon asks at one point. All he receives for a response is a grunt.

They stop for lunch just an hour after leaving at small family-owned place near a rest stop. They get two _bibimbap_ sets after Sanghyuk pores over the menu for a minute or two and gives up, asking Hakyeon to order for him.

“Are you all from around here?” the owner’s wife asks later, after they’ve finished eating. “You live near that magic place?”

“Not really,” Hakyeon says. He jerks a thumb at Sanghyuk. “We’re sending him to school. Still a few hours away, though.”

“Is that so?” she smiles at Sanghyuk before she collects the bill. “Good luck.”

He nods.

“Thank you,” says Hakyeon.

They drive out again after Hakyeon buys water and some snacks from the convenience store next door.

 “Why’d you lie?” Sanghyuk asks as they get back into the car.

Hakyeon fumbles with the seatbelt buckle before he clicks it in, turning back to the wheel. “Huh?”

“When she asked us if we came from the city,” he explains. “Why’d you lie?”

“Oh.” Hakyeon waits until he’s backed out to speak again. “It’s automatic by now, I guess.”

He glances at Sanghyuk from the corner of his eye.

“Should I not tell people about my curse?”

Hakyeon says, slowly, “You should use your judgment. If you feel you should tell someone, go ahead, but you also need to be careful when you talk about it.”

Sanghyuk frowns. “Alright.”

“Do you want to?”

“Want to what?”

“Want to tell other people?”

Sanghyuk thinks for a bit. “Maybe. I’m not sure. It seems like they’ll figure it out whether or not I tell them, and it’s a lot of stress to hide something so big for such a long time.”

Hakyeon hums, “Okay.”

Sanghyuk fidgets, but doesn’t speak again.

The drive is seven hours including bathroom breaks and lunch. Somewhere along the way, country road begins to bleed into urban structures, and Hakyeon doesn’t notice that they’ve arrived until the sun is dipping behind tall high rises. Unlike their hometown, everything here seems to be open, with the university itself mixed into the downtown area. Throngs of people of all ages in all manners of dress reach as far as Hakyeon can see, swarming through crosswalks and streaming from buildings. It’s all he can do to grit his teeth and navigate through the dizzying mix of cars and foot traffic.

Sanghyuk sits, stiffer than before, still staring out the window.

“So? What do you think?” Hakyeon prompts as they reach a red light.

“A lot more people,” Sanghyuk says, and swallows.

“It’s a big city.” Hakyeon leans closer to his side window, peering up at the nearest skyscraper. “And it’s not a closed campus like your old university, right?”

“Yeah.” Sanghyuk doesn’t turn around.

“Think you’ll be okay?”

There is a pause. “I don’t know.”

A flurry of horns blares behind them and Hakyeon curses, snapping his attention back to the road.

“Did you go to school in a big city like this?”

Hakyeon glances at Sanghyuk, watching as he bites down on his trembling bottom lip.

“Not quite as big,” he admits, “but it had a similar feel.”

“Did you like it?”

“I made some good friends.”

When he flicks his eyes to the side again, Sanghyuk is staring back.

“The ones you’ve been texting?”

“The ones I’ve been texting,” Hakyeon agrees. He smiles a little, “We were roommates for a few years.”

“Oh.” Sanghyuk turns to face front again, his expression blank.

Eventually, Hakyeon finds the residence hall, wedged between a 24-hour nail salon and a tofu shop, and parks at a lot another block down. Jaehwan’s old car groans as they unload Sanghyuk’s things, packed into four large boxes.

Hakyeon hefts one, surveying the others, and makes a brief noise of disgust. “These are too big. We’ll have to take two trips.”

Sanghyuk shrugs, lifting another.

Hakyeon lifts one knee to balance the box but before he can close the trunk, a hand shoots out to grab his wrist.

“Actually,” Sanghyuk hesitates, shifting his box so he’s holding it with one arm. “I can take them all.”

Hakyeon stops to stare. “Okay then. Thanks.”

“Yeah.” Sanghyuk steps in to easily lift another box in his other arm. “Can you help me put the third one on top?”

Hakyeon jerks forward, balancing his own box on top of the two Sanghyuk’s already holding.

“Is that okay?” The boy’s voice is a little muffled by the box in front of his face, but it holds a clear quaver.

“Of course. Thank you, Sanghyuk,” Hakyeon smiles, and Sanghyuk’s frame relaxes just a tiny bit.

“Sure.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hakyeon and Taekwoon see old friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for brief mention of recreational drinking

Hakyeon graduated on a sunny May afternoon, amidst a flurry of blooming spring, pollen allergies, crying peers, and scratchy robes. For the first and only time since he left the city, his parents drove out to sit next to his brother and two sisters for the ceremony.

He remembers the disposable camera that Jisoo broke trying to get a good shot of Wongeun accepting his diploma. He remembers the floral perfume (lavender and honeysuckle) of the girl sitting directly behind him who sneezed eight times and coughed twice during the commencement speech. Wongeun had offered her a cough drop (honey lemon), which she had declined.

He remembers the swirling breeze that had escaped him as they threw their caps in the air. The students around him shivered as it blew past, just slightly too icy to belong in the warm spring air.

The next day, after his parents left, he packed a small suitcase, watered the plants on his windowsill, and hopped into the back seat of Wongeun’s car for the first road trip of his life.

Within the span of three days, Hakyeon discovered that road trips, especially those that were not well-planned, were horribly mundane. The original plan had been to drive the short two hours to the ocean and then make their way down the coast for a week, sleeping at motels or in the car along the way. In just a few days, they came to the conclusion that maybe they would not last two weeks in Wongeun’s musty car, and had promptly turned back.

All in all, the trip was as uneventful as trips go. Nothing extraordinary happened and everything that normally went wrong in a road trip went wrong. They didn’t pack enough food and took too many pictures and Jisoo had resorted to a water bottle once on the highway when they couldn’t find a bathroom in time.

Hakyeon saw the ocean for the first time, heard the endless crash of waves rolling towards the horizon and smelled the warm sun that kissed the brisk, briny air.

The first time he took off his shoes and stood on the wet sand at the edge of the water, blazing sun beating down even through the cold, Wongeun had dunked him into the surf. The three of them had wrestled each other further into the waves, not yet summer-warm, until it was impossible to tell whose hands were whose and they were reduced to a shivering tangle of limbs.

Afterwards, they wandered through a market by the sea as Hakyeon named the fresh-picked flowers in every stall, slurping at cups of shaved ice melting in the sun. It was exhausting, standing in the sticky heat all day, yet Hakyeon couldn’t bring himself to leave.

In the end, he fell asleep in the backseat of the car, so tired that both his skin and the worn leather of the seat around him were covered in a layer of frost. It wasn’t until they developed the pictures that Hakyeon realized Wongeun and Jisoo had documented the moment, taking too many shots of his slack, sleeping face as they posed and laughed and pinched his cold cheeks.

\--

Hakyeon groans, pressing back against the headrest in Jaehwan’s car, and digs the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. The regret over refusing Sanghyuk’s offer to stay the night in his dorm room begins to set in. After a moment, he sighs and sits forward, leaning his forehead against the wheel, staring down at the lit screen of the phone in his lap.

A single notification glares up at him, mockingly bright in the fading light of a late summer evening.

[7:03am] Wongeun: r u coming? lmk when u get here

It’s concise, exactly how Wongeun always texts, yet Hakyeon can’t help but be bothered by the toneless quality of the words. He scrolls up absently, wincing as he notes the gaps in time between their messages.

Two from each of them wishing him safe travels the weekend he had moved out.

A few scattered between October and December, all asking where he was, how he was doing, why he didn’t reply.

 One from Jisoo on the first day of January, the moment the clock struck twelve, as if their small group of three had been the first people he had thought of as the countdown ended.

And then there had been the one in March from Wongeun, the one that hadn’t been in the group chat.

The one that had sounded so hurt, even in his inflectionless script, that Hakyeon had impulsively replied. And kept replying.

Sometimes, he thinks it might have been easier if he had just deleted the contacts and blocked their numbers, but he knew all along that he didn’t want to relive the feeling of being alone.

Sure, he has Taekwoon and Sanghyuk and Jaehwan and Hongbin and Wonsik and all the new people from his old home, but it scares him to think about how, just under a year ago, none of these people existed to him and he didn’t exist to them. Maybe someday, they would disappear just as easily as they had come into his life. Just like he had tried to disappear.

So he keeps their numbers and reads their texts.

So he replies and apologizes when Wongeun finally breaks, pleading and angry.

With a sigh, he turns the key in the ignition, tapping out a quick reply and buckling his seatbelt as the sky starts to go dark.

[8:02pm] Hakyeon: on my way now.

Two hours later, Hakyeon is acutely aware of the buzzing tension in his chest and the insistent rumble in his stomach as he stares up at the familiar window in the second floor of his old apartment complex, lit and dancing with faint shadows.

He locks the car and gets out before he can change his mind, taking a deep breath before he trudges up the stairs, careful not to step on the creaky spots. There is the distinct sound of muffled voices volleying back and forth from behind the door, but they stop abruptly as soon as Hakyeon knocks.

He presses his lips together, trying not to look at the peephole, as his pulse thunders in his ears. After a long moment, the lock clicks, the door swings inward, and two figures tumble out from behind.

“Surprise!” A party popper goes off in Hakyeon’s stunned face as he takes in Wongeun and Jisoo, grinning just wide enough to verge on mischievous, both wearing party-hats and sporting plastic kazoos.

“Happy belated birthday, hyung,” Jisoo declares, and Hakyeon can see the streamers decorating the living room behind him, a small cake—the type for at most three people—on the table.

The air from inside tickles at Hakyeon’s arms, comfortably cold, even though they have no reason to keep the air conditioning on so often now that he was gone.

“Oh,” he begins to laugh, wiping at wet eyes, as he steps inside, spreading his arms for hugs. “I’m back.”

The cake is ice cream. Hakyeon slices it into three large pieces and they lounge on the hardwood floor like old times, eating cake off paper plates and drinking cold soju. He peers around the room, inspecting the plants, and chides Jisoo for not buying the right soil when they repotted the _Echeveria_ succulents earlier that summer.

There’s been a shift in the apartment since Hakyeon moved out, so slight he barely notices, yet it is unarguably there.

There are still parts of him left, embedded deep enough for him to feel something like relief that he has not yet completely disappeared from the place—the apartment, the city, the schools—that changed him so much.

There is the stain on the kitchen wall above the sink from when he had fumbled a spoonful of _gochujang_ and a scuff on the floor from a botched pirouette the first night they all got drunk together since graduating. A plant sits in every window, most of them aloe from his personal preference, and there are still too many ice trays and popsicle molds in the freezer.

It doesn’t seem quite fair that compared to the small, barely noticeable marks he has made in this small room, it will take him years to rid of the uneasiness of seeing the white walls of the city at home, a constant reminder of seclusion, protection, and everything else that is not good or bad, but _different_.

Even now, the evidence that Hakyeon had once lived here is starting to vanish. The hole he had left in the bookcase is now filled in with new magazines, the plants are starting to brown at the edges of the leaves despite Jisoo’s valiant efforts at keeping them alive, and their landlord will soon get around to painting over the stain in the kitchen.

Slowly, the apartment has begun to veer from the place that Hakyeon had once regarded as a home, and he can’t help but feel a little melancholy about it. Wongeun and Jisoo are here, though, and Hakyeon can feel like he still belongs in his old room, just a little, until he finds a new home and someone else to fill in the heavy emptiness.

Later, when they’re all tipsy and Jisoo has fallen asleep on the couch, Wongeun leans forward over the half-eaten cake and grins, wide and easy.

“We missed you,” he says, and Hakyeon knows he’s just drunk enough to be honest.

He smiles back. “I missed you too.”

“Jisoo’s trying really hard to take care of your plants, hyung.”

“I know. I’ll try to help him out more in the future.”

“Will you come back to visit again?”

He barely has to pause to consider his reply this time. “Of course.”

\--

Hakyeon moves into Hongbin’s old room two days after he gets back. With him arrives a boatload of skincare supplies, candles, and potted plants.

Taekwoon manages to rope Wonsik, Hongbin, and Jaehwan into helping them unpack. It goes well, all in all. Nothing gets broken or damaged too badly, although Jaehwan nearly tears the curtains when he trips over a lamp cord.

“We should have done this while Hyukkie was still here,” Hongbin complains over a box of heavy books, huffing as he shoves the door open with his foot. Wonsik quickly rushes to take the load out of his hands.

They finish setting up Hakyeon’s room fairly quickly, rearranging the dresser and candles on the windowsill under his direction until all is satisfactory. Unfortunately, Hakyeon doesn’t trust anyone with his plants, so they sit in a pitiful pack, shedding dirt on the carpet as Hakyeon determines, one by one, the perfect resting place for each based on sunlight, humidity, and the color of their bright ceramic pots.

“Feels like home,” he says approvingly when he finishes, surveying his work with hands on his hips.

After Taekwoon vacuums the fallen soil, they sprawl in the living room and Hakyeon orders pizza to thank them for the help. Hakyeon settles sideways on the couch with his feet pulled up, shoving Jaehwan off, while Taekwoon lounges on the ground with his head at Hakyeon’s elbow.

A finger prods Taekwoon’s arm. “This entire room is soundproofed, right?”

Taekwoon’s lip twitches with irritation at the stab of Hakyeon’s fingernail, but he nods.

“I asked one of Taekwoon-hyung’s old college friends to do it for his birthday,” Hongbin pipes up from across the room, where he’s lying with his head on Wonsik’s legs and his feet propped on Jaehwan’s stomach.

Hakyeon hums thoughtfully. “So if I stood in my bedroom, I wouldn’t be able to hear you talking?”

“Only if the charms are on.”

 “What if I stood in the hallway? I still wouldn’t be able to hear you?”

“Yes.”

“And the piano is yours?” Hakyeon’s face looms into view as he leans down to peer into Taekwoon’s face.

“Yes.”

He makes a curious noise, sitting back up. For a moment, Taekwoon thinks he will say something else, but he just flops onto his side, resting his head against Taekwoon’s shoulder.

Later, after the pizza is demolished and everyone has left, Hakyeon walks around the living room, adjusting a vase here and a leaf there and sweeping up stray flakes of dirt. Taekwoon lies the couch, languid on a full stomach, and pretends to doze as he watches.

Through half-lidded eyes, he can only see the dark outline of Hakyeon’s body as he walks back and forth, socked feet light on the hardwood floor. Even through the haze of sleep, his figure stands in graceful lines against the dim yellow light of the only lamp in the room. The rest of the world pales in comparison to the simple curve of his arm, the slant of his back, and the twist of his leg as he moves with the composure of a practiced dancer, his posture springy and straight.

Taekwoon’s eyes are fully shut by the time Hakyeon speaks again. “Will you let me hear you sing one day?”

There is a part of him that wants to snap his eyes open and blurt, _Yes_.

There is a part of him that swells with an overflowing song and wants nothing more than to pull it out of his mouth and pour it into someone else’s head.

There is a part of him that wants to sigh a wordless melody into the smooth shell of Hakyeon’s ear, to sing his very existence to life in Hakyeon’s heart.

Taekwoon isn’t sure that he’s ready to let that part of himself act yet, so he says nothing and evens out his breath and pretends he did not hear.

In the next few weeks, he comes to find that living with Hakyeon is becoming accustomed to the cold. There are small things that Taekwoon learns to take into stride, just infinitesimal everyday adjustments that remind him, _Hakyeon lives here now_.

After a few weeks, it becomes habit to turn on the air conditioning first thing after walking through the door so that Hakyeon can come home to a comfortably cold house. Taekwoon starts wearing more sweaters and drinking hot coffee as summer withers into fall, and the sweet scent of candles becomes a permanent fixture in the apartment.

There is a level of vulnerability that Taekwoon recognizes as Hakyeon slowly lets his guard down and becomes more comfortable at home. He learns to cherish every sight of a bleary-eyed Hakyeon first thing in the morning, frost and stubble still staining his cheeks, and his stomach twists at the way Hakyeon looks late at night right before bed, precise poise softened by old sweats and hair carelessly floppy and mussed.

He grows used to waking up in the morning and watering Hakyeon’s plants for him on days the other man is too tired to control his temperature and leaves ice dusting each petal in his wake. Hakyeon writes a plant care schedule after the first few times it happens, and they slide into a routine of split chores, shared meals, and enough lukewarm coffee for two.

It feels just like that first night, when Taekwoon had drifted into Hakyeon’s space almost subconsciously, surrounded by the small mementos and memorabilia that together marked the place, declared that _Hakyeon_ inhabited that space. The only difference is now, Taekwoon’s things are here, too—candles adorning the piano, an old sweater from a university he’s never been to hanging on the couch, his old cat mug next to Hakyeon’s favorite daisy plates.

Taekwoon never says so aloud, but he is secretly pleased that he fits so seamlessly into Hakyeon’s life.

\--

As the seasons change, more and more of the plants on the veranda wander into the house.

“They need shelter from the cold,” Hakyeon insists when Taekwoon points out he found a cactus in the sink earlier that week.

Eventually, once all the windowsills are out of space, Taekwoon intervenes.

“There are too many plants,” he declares the night he is ousted from his seat at the kitchen table by a dainty cup of geraniums.

“They’re so cute, though,” Hakyeon says pitifully. He cradles the pot to his chest as Taekwoon sits, blinking at him with pleading eyes.

Taekwoon hesitates, but ultimately is not swayed. “We need to find somewhere else to store them.”

After a bit of haggling back and forth, Taekwoon remembers the old bookcase his mother had relocated to her garage a few years back. It’s sturdy wood painted black, nondescript enough to fit in their living room, and Hakyeon eventually concedes when Taekwoon agrees to help him rearrange to furniture to maximize its exposure to sunlight.

“It’ll be a late birthday present or something,” Taekwoon says, blushing a little, and Hakyeon finds himself just a little dizzy with surprise that Taekwoon remembered his birthday even through the hubbub of Sanghyuk’s transfer decision.

They end up recruiting Jaehwan—and, more importantly, Jaehwan’s car—the next weekend, driving to Taekwoon’s parents’ house Saturday evening after Hakyeon closes up early.

The initial plan is to grab the bookcase from the garage and go. They manage to turn it on its side, Taekwoon and Jaehwan hold either end while Hakyeon propped open the side door, but Taekwoon’s mother catches them as they are halfway down the driveway.

She’s long-limbed and sharp-eyed, just like her son. The lines around her mouth and eyes suggest a lifetime of smiles, although currently, she has an expression heavy with disappointment directed towards her son. Hakyeon finds himself wondering if Taekwoon will have the same lines when he older, too.

“Taekwoon, why didn’t you tell me you were bringing guests over for dinner?” she scolds, and they are all hustled inside before they even realize they’ve been invited.

Jaehwan quickly recovers, greeting her with a familiar hug, and Hakyeon feels somewhat relieved that she’s too busy shooing them inside to offer him one too.

Inside, Taekwoon’s father is busy chopping vegetables into neat cubes, occasionally stopping to stir at a pot of soup. He’s tall—a pattern Hakyeon is beginning to realize applies to the entire family—with neat gray hair trimmed short. He sports a somber expression, but greets Jaehwan and Hakyeon with hospitable warmth as his wife puts them to work setting the table.

Over dinner, they ask about Hakyeon’s job, his family, and how he’s adjusting to Taekwoon’s apartment, occasionally interrupting with a query towards how Jaehwan has been doing since they last saw him. Hakyeon vaguely remembers seeing them the morning he and Jaehwan picked Sanghyuk up from his parents’ house, but they recognize him immediately, thanking him again and again for all his help with Sanghyuk’s transfer and subsequent move to the outside.

It’s with a jolt that Hakyeon hears neither of them were born in the city, although it’s been nearly twenty years since either of them left.

“We didn’t have many living relatives in the outside after my mother died,” his father explains. “So we never had much reason to leave.”

They load the bookcase into the car after they finish eating, returning to the doorway to bid Taekwoon’s parents goodbye. His mother lingers on the front step, sniping at Taekwoon to bring his friends over longer next time.

Right before they go, she wraps Jaehwan in another hug, muttering something in his ear until he laughs. Taekwoon receives a similar goodbye, although she gives him a critical glance first and Hakyeon can clearly hear her jabs at his choice of dress.

When she turns to Hakyeon, he prepares for another hug, but she just grasps his hand, a smile lighting her face. “Taekwoon says it can become uncomfortable hugging people who are much warmer than you.”

Hakyeon’s heart squeezes, and he shakes his head. “Only during the summer. I would love a hug right now, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Without a beat of hesitation, she throws her arms around him with the practiced rearranging of limbs from years of holding children who had slowly grown into adults.

“Please come visit again,” she tells him as she pulls away. “We’d like to spend more time getting to know you. Taekwoon always has so many good things to say about you.”

Taekwoon blushes and grunts another goodbye. After a final wave to his parents, Hakyeon and Jaehwan turn back to follow him through the gate.

“Your parents’ cooking is always so good,” Jaehwan sighs, content coloring his voice.

“She used to make me do all the cooking when I lived at home,” Taekwoon grumbles.

“Taekwoon, I think you should meet my parents, too,” Hakyeon says, laughing as the other man chokes. He looks down, scuffing his shoes on the pavement. “They want to know what my new roommate’s like.”

“Fine,” Taekwoon replies, sounding somewhat harried. “When?”

“How about next Friday or something?” Hakyeon muses. “You can come after you finish work. My brother—”

He is interrupted as Taekwoon suddenly comes to a halt in the middle of the street, shoulders tightening with tension. Behind him, Jaehwan stumbles at the abrupt stop, throwing out a hand to balance himself and pushing him face-first into Taekwoon’s back.

“Ow,” Hakyeon mutters, stepping back with a hand over his tender nose. “Taekwoon, what—?”

When he looks up, Taekwoon is stock-still, his eyes wide and mouth slack with shock. He follows his gaze to a man standing in front of the house next door and looking back at them with an awkwardly stiff expression, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets and his eyes trained on Taekwoon’s face.

“Jung Taekwoon?” he says after a moment, voice wavering with uncertainty.

“Oh,” Taekwoon says, his voice oddly pitched, and to Hakyeon’s alarm, he looks like he might faint. “Sunggyu-hyung?”

Hakyeon glances at Jaehwan, but he seems to be just as confused as Hakyeon feels.

“Hey.” Sunggyu’s smile is lopsided and stiff. “I’m back. It’s been a long time.”

“You—” Taekwoon gulps, still at a loss for words. “It’s good to see you.”

Sunggyu forces out a laugh, high and disbelieving. “You’ve grown so tall.” He shakes his head. “No, sorry. You’re what, twenty-six now?”

Taekwoon gulps. “Twenty-seven.” After a moment’s pause, he follows, almost tentatively, with, “Are you staying?”

“No,” Sunggyu says. “Just visiting. I’ve been living somewhere else for the past two years.”

There is significance in the statement that Hakyeon does not understand. He watches Taekwoon’s eyes widen, and his chest tightens with uneasiness.

“And—your curse?”

At this, Sunggyu gives a small shrug, digging his hands further into his pockets. He purses his lips as if to trap the words on his tongue before he lets them become real.

“It’s gone.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Taekwoon shares and Hakyeon listens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for temporary paralysis/muscle function loss (?) the situation is safe and the character is consenting, but please be aware that he is unable to move/speak for a short period of time if that makes you uncomfortable. also there are very brief mentions of smoking, recreational drinking, riots, fires, and random curse-related violence (no major character are hurt, but just in case).

“It’s been so long,” Sunggyu says.

Taekwoon doesn’t know how to reply. It’s all he can do to stand there and stare, something on the verge of collapsing in his chest. Somewhere far away, he can hear Jaehwan muttering something to Hakyeon.

Sunggyu has an undiscernible expression on his face, like he knows the exact weight of his words. Does he even remember Taekwoon’s curse? He’s been all over the country—maybe even the world—and he really has no reason to remember his neighbors’ youngest child from when he was in elementary school.

A touch to his arm brings him back to the present. Taekwoon jerks, looking into Hakyeon’s concerned eyes.

“Taekwoon, are you alright?”

Sunggyu looks pained. “I’m sorry, I know this is a shock—”

“What’s going on?” Hakyeon asks quietly, and it’s at just the right volume to clear the cotton in Taekwoon’s ears.

“This is Kim Sunggyu, my old neighbor,” Taekwoon says. “He lived in the house next door when we were children.” He swallows. “He hasn’t been back home since he was eight.”

“It was my curse,” Sunggyu supplies. The familiar lilt of the excuse, one that Taekwoon has both made and heard countless times in his life, is marred by the past tense.

“‘Was?’” Jaehwan echoes.

“It started out as wandering in my sleep,but as I got older, it started happening while I was awake as well. I would just suddenly get the urge to stand up and walk around. It didn’t matter where I went, as long as it was somewhere new. I had to walk farther and farther each time, until my family was forced to move out. We traveled for years. It got to the point where I couldn’t stay in one place for more than a week, and I was considering leaving the country, but then, one day, I woke up and it was just gone.”

“When did that happen?” Jaehwan breathes.

“Five years ago.”

 _Five years_.

Empty fear seizes at Taekwoon’s heart.

_You’re what, twenty-six now?_

Taekwoon does the calculations in his head. Sunggyu had been only twenty-two when he had lost his curse.

_Twenty-seven._

“I’ve been in contact with the Census Bureau,” Sunggyu says. “They put me under surveillance for a while, and I’ve been coming in for check-ups. There are others who’ve undergone the same thing.”

“Others.” Hakyeon’s voice breaks. “How many?”

“Not that many yet.” _Yet_. “More than you would think, though.” His expression softens as his eyes land on Taekwoon. There is still something left of the boy next door who had held Taekwoon’s hand and taught him how to catch fireflies and climb trees. “They’re still doing tests, but they’ll publish the results, soon.”

“It’ll happen to everyone?” Taekwoon chokes out.

“They’re not sure, but there is speculation.”

Disbelief rises like a ringing wave in his ears, loud and violent. For a moment, even though Hakyeon and Jaehwan and Sunggyu are still right there, he feels the familiar sensation of a vast, detached emptiness rising to envelope him.

“And now? What are you doing now?” Jaehwan asks.

Sunggyu worries his lips with his teeth. He shrugs. “I don’t know. Living. Working. The usual.”

“You said you’re living in the outside,” Jaehwan points out. “You’re not planning on coming back?”

“This place stopped being my home when I was five years old,” Sunggyu says. “I don’t feel much for it anymore. Besides,” he pauses, giving a half-hearted smile. It’s awkward, experimental. “I have someone waiting for me there.”

“Oh,” Jaehwan jumps. “Sorry. Are we keeping you from them?”

“No, not at all. I didn’t mean to imply that I had to get back immediately,” Sunggyu rushes to reassure him. “It just—I have people there, you know? I—”

He breaks off, looking contemplative.

“You built a new home with people you love,” Hakyeon supplies quietly. Taekwoon jolts.

“Yes,” Sunggyu breathes, relieved. “Yes, exactly.” He’s looking at Taekwoon with someone faintly apologetic in his eyes, and Taekwoon wants to look away, because he’s not ready to accept an apology Sunggyu doesn’t deserve to give. He doesn’t want to hear an apology for something he doesn’t yet want to acknowledge.

He can’t look away, because he knows Hakyeon is staring at him now, waiting for him to react, to say something, but he can’t speak.

“I should go,” Sunggyu finally says, and he sounds clumsy and stilted, but no one makes any move to stop him. Taekwoon can feel Hakyeon’s gaze burning into his side, waiting, and still, he says nothing.

He can’t speak, because he’s too busy listening. Even as Sunggyu turns to go, he can only choke out an insufficient goodbye, wrapped up in the roaring confusion and disgusted fear and hesitant hope.

Somewhere in his head, hidden in the tangle of emotions, he hears the tune of an unborn, wordless song.

\--

The Census Bureau gives the official announcement two weeks later, and Taekwoon remembers the words that Hongbin had once told him in the early hours of the morning, a contradictory mess of sharp candor and vulnerable hope.

 _It’s useless to define things in terms of forever_.

Once again, Taekwoon finds himself hanging on to that tentative thread, and it’s the most terrifying thing in the world to look down and realize the boundless emptiness below that holds nothing to catch him.

He can’t bring himself to think about what it will be like the day the thread snaps and he wishes he got the chance to ask Sunggyu before he left: _What did it feel like to fall?_

They watch the news play out on Hakyeon’s laptop, lying on his bed, and for the first time in a while, it’s too small for the both of them.

“So?” Hakyeon asks, long after the news clip ends. “What are you going to do?”

“There’s nothing to do,” Taekwoon whispers, barely pushing his voice through his lips. He rises abruptly, starting Hakyeon and making the laptop wobble on his knees. Something is building up in his mouth, in his throat, in his gut, and he feels almost nauseous from the effort of swallowing it down.

“Taekwoon,” Hakyeon says, and his voice is too sharp. “Taekwoon, what’s wrong?”

“I—I need to,” Taekwoon forces out. Grimacing, he motions at the door. “I need to sing. Can you—?” He trails off, letting his hand fall, limp, to his side.

“You need me to close the door?” Hakyeon finishes.

Taekwoon nods, eyes falling.

“Okay.” Hakyeon says, softer. “Of course. Knock when you’re done.”

Taekwoon fights down the tears, but they drip down his face anyway, squeezed out by the growing lump in his throat. He gasps for breath, scrubbing roughly at his face with one hand as the other scrabbles for the door handle.

“Taekwoon,” Hakyeon’s voice calls, wrenching his attention back. “You know you can talk to me anytime, right?”

He knows. Hakyeon will always listen to him and comfort him and accept the words that leave his lips, but Taekwoon doesn’t want to talk. Not yet.

To speak is to clear the clouds of uncertainty in his brain and Taekwoon doesn’t want that quite yet. To speak is to make the turmoil concrete, and Taekwoon isn’t ready for that. He doesn’t want Hakyeon to hear the emotions come spilling out before he can sort them, identify them, and figure out whether or not he is ashamed.

“Whenever you want,” Hakyeon says, and Taekwoon just nods gratefully before closing the door behind him.

_Will you let me hear you sing one day?_

Sitting before the piano, bathed in soothing silence, the answer feels realer than ever before, perched just on the tip of his tongue. His jaw aches to open, but he’s been clenching it for too long, so he lets it relax, slowly, before parting his lips.

It’s been a long time since he’s needed so urgently to sing, but the notes sound jarring and discordant. It’s not the song he wants to sing, but he pushes it out anyway.

It takes a long time to end, but the ugly, broken chords fade eventually, and Taekwoon feels just a little lighter.

He feels just light enough to open his mouth and speak a word. “Someday.”

It’s not the word he wants to speak, and, just like the song, it’s not the word he wants Hakyeon to hear.

He tastes it in his mouth, solid and weighty and something like a promise. Maybe next time he sang, the song would sound less crooked, less choppy, and less dissonant. Maybe next time, it would be slightly smoother, somewhat closer to the melody still trapped in his chest, trembling to beat its way out.

“Someday,” he whispers again.

It feels real.

\--

“Did you hear the news?” Hakyeon’s mom asks, voice tinny and far away through the phone.

“Yes.” Hakyeon inhales a deep breath. When it’s not enough, he inhales another.

“Have you been feeling anything different with your curse?” she asks, concerned, and Hakyeon feels grateful for the sound of another person in his ear.

“No. Not yet.”

“Do you think it’ll happen soon? Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” he exhales. “I’m scared.”

“Oh, Hakyeon. You should come home if you’re not feeling well. Your father can take over in the shop for a few days.”

“Maybe this weekend,” he sighs. “I’m fine for now.”

After a few more reassurances that he would be okay, he hangs up, letting cold air fill the space around him. It’s a little lonely, but he’s seen Taekwoon take comfort in quiet solitude, so he wraps it around himself and looks for solace in the unwavering tranquility of the silence.

In the next few days, Hakyeon learns just how much change can disturb the foundations of a city.

“There’s a protest in front of the city hall,” Jaehwan tells him a week later as he hands him his coffee. They’re alone in the early morning, before the shop opens. “They think the news is fake, and they want the Census Bureau to publish the data they used in the study.”

Hakyeon sips his coffee thoughtfully. “They probably signed nondisclosure agreements with the subjects, right?”

Jaehwan nods. “They haven’t made any announcements about it, but they’re probably waiting for someone who’s actually lost their curse to speak up about it. I’m sure they’ve been keeping the whole deal a secret the past few years to maintain public order.”

“I still can’t really believe this is happening, either,” Hakyeon mutters. “I’ve lived my entire life thinking I was doomed to live like this whether I liked it or not.”

“How are you holding up?”

Hakyeon shrugs. “There’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll lose this curse eventually, whether I want to or not. I don’t know how to feel. You?”

“I’m never going to change,” Jaehwan says. He allows himself a small smile. “But it feels a lot less lonely knowing that as time goes on, people will forget I used to be different. Honestly, Wonsik and Hongbin have it a lot harder.”

Hakyeon props his elbows on the counter and buries the heels of his palms into his closed eyes. “It’s so much to take in.”

“Everything’s going to change,” Jaehwan agrees. “People have gotten used to having curses. Everyone in a curse-based business won’t know how long they have left to work before they have to switch careers. We don’t have to worry about never moving out of the city anymore, and who’s going to tell all those kids that the powers they just got are going to be gone when they finally get used to them?”

“Have you talked with Sanghyuk yet?”

Jaehwan nods. “His sister called him the day the news came out. He was upset, but he’s been living in the outside, so it won’t be as hard for him to adapt.” He pauses, staring down at the coffee machine. “I guess I’m a little scared to ask him if he plans on moving out for good after he finishes his degree.” He sighs. “How about Taekwoon-hyung?”

“He was really upset,” Hakyeon admits. “He hasn’t been speaking to me much. I told him he could talk to me anytime, but I don’t want to push him.”

“It’s the silence,” Jaehwan says. “He won’t have it anymore afterwards.”

Hakyeon just takes another sip of lukewarm coffee. He’s already forgotten what it feels like to burn his tongue. “I know.”

The following Monday morning, Taekwoon’s bedroom is empty by the time Hakyeon gets up. He reads the newspaper alone over cooling breakfast left out for him without a note, catching snippets of text as he skims the page absently.

_The Curse Management Control Forces have been extremely active, clocking more cases in the past week alone than they have in the last year. The recent study published by the Census Bureau on the recent phenomenon of curses disappearing has sparked unrest among the public, resulting in instability among cursed citizens relating directly to emotional or mental fatigue._

On Tuesday, a ten-year-old boy accidentally robs an entire mall of their sense of smell. No one notices until a customer in the perfume store on the first floor drops a vial and the staff call security.

The CMCs set up a curse-containment barrier around the mall and spend the next five hours searching for the perpetrator, only to find that the incident had occurred because the boy’s mother had refused to buy him a box of chocolates.

Hakyeon gets off work early and stays in his room as Taekwoon spends an evening on the piano.

Wednesday morning, the protest begins to disintegrate into a riot, which is promptly shut down by the CMCs. Twelve people are sent to the hospital, and seven are arrested.

At noon, the Census Bureau releases the first consenting subject’s identity.

Hakyeon watches the live broadcasted video on his phone from behind the counter as a single woman, amiable features twisted with nerves, speaks before a mass of journalists.

“Hello,” she begins, a brief smile flitting across her face. “My name is Jung Yerin, and I am twenty years old. I lost my curse this past spring.”

It’s a momentous day in history, the type that you tell your grandchildren you witnessed when they read about it in textbooks. Hakyeon stares at the young woman’s face as she steels herself for the questions, the accusations, and the doubts, but the real affirmation has already been made.

Hakyeon lets himself bury his face in his hands. The shop is empty anyway, everyone no doubt sitting somewhere and watching the same broadcast at the moment.

It feels real.

\--

Thursday night, Hakyeon receives a text as he’s putting his apron away and preparing to lock up.

[10:02pm] Taekwoon: i have something to show you

When he gets home, the entryway is lit, but the apartment is quiet.

“Taekwoon?” he calls tentatively, and is rewarded with a faint shuffling noise from somewhere further inside.

He emerges into the living room, shoes off and coat over his arm, and freezes at the sight of Taekwoon sitting on the bench before the piano.

“Hakyeon,” he says, and hesitation in his voice sounds almost foreign.

“You wanted to show me something,” Hakyeon breathes, eyes flickering between Taekwoon and the piano. “You wanted to sing?”

Taekwoon nods.

“And your curse?” he asks tightly.

“I still have it,” Taekwoon says, and something eases in Hakyeon’s chest.

“How—?”

Taekwoon gestures towards the couch. The cushions have been uprooted and piled together. Hakyeon spots a few pillows from Taekwoon’s bed in the mix, too.

He lowers himself down, letting Taekwoon move the pillows under his neck until he’s propped up where he can see the piano even when he lets his neck go limp.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Taekwoon asks, adjusting Hakyeon’s knee, and then his head. “You’ll be able to breathe, but it might be uncomfortable, and you won’t be able to move.”

“The pillows are fine,” Hakyeon reassures him. “And you know it doesn’t hurt. Besides,” he catches Taekwoon’s hand. “I want to hear you sing.”

Taekwoon rises to sit before the piano again, resting his hands on the keys. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

He presses down, and the first notes of the intro are familiar enough that Hakyeon recognizes them from an unfinished tune he’s heard Taekwoon play a few times in the café. He tenses with anticipation, letting the melody seep into his bones, and then Taekwoon opens his mouth and he can do nothing but sink back, limp and stunned.

Taekwoon’s voice is clear and piercing and captivating in the way that only otherworldly things are captivating. It flows through Hakyeon like a river, sharp and unforgiving with the strong tingle of magic, and drags him through gentle currents with the insistent pull of _Listen to me_ over and over until Hakyeon slips under the surface.

Tears prickle at his eyes, but he can barely blink them away. It doesn't feel as he thought it would, with his limbs frozen and tense, but rather the song sucks the strength from them, leaving him so helpless and incredulous that he can focus on nothing but the inhale and exhale of every breath and the course of the melody through his veins.

The song itself is not as sharp as Taekwoon's voice, sanded with loving care and gentle caresses, yet it keens with pain and melancholy uncertainty. Each note resonates with love, with hatred, with bitter resentment and mature acceptance and reluctant affection and tangled confusion. Through all the chaos, Taekwoon picks at it with patient care, as one would a crusted knot, with soft fingers and a cajoling tone and imperturbable resolve.

A pang shoots through his chest as Hakyeon recognizes, even without the words, Taekwoon is singing abouthimself—not his experiences or his family or his home or even his love but all of it, his very _life_.

All this—all of Taekwoon’s voice—tempered and tortured with years of guilt and suppression and self-restraint and longing, finally pours out for Hakyeon alone to receive and embrace and cherish.

It is almost too much to bear, but it is enough for him to understand. It is enough for Hakyeon to gasp for breath, deep and rasping, defiant against the tears in his throat. It is enough to Hakyeon to open his ears and endure and make a small, small realization.

A long time ago—but really not that long ago—in a place far from home, Hakyeon had learned how easy it was to lose oneself in the torrent of normality, to be slight enough to not matter, but strange enough for others to recognize the tiny, ugly blip in the map.

He decided then that in the grand scheme of things, nothing about himself would ever be bigger than the flower shop, bigger than the city, or bigger than the world. He decided then that he didn’t _want_ to be anything more than small, anything more than insignificant.

So really, it shouldn’t be this much of a surprise, he thinks. It didn’t really happen at a specific moment.

But maybe it did.

Maybe, in that moment when he had received a call from his father asking him to come home.

Maybe, sitting at that window and drinking lukewarm coffee and pretending to draw.

Maybe, standing under the weight of the snow on his shoulders in a narrow alley, smoke seeping from his lips.

Maybe something infinitesimally small had shifted.

But really, it had been a multitude of microscopic fragments, so minute they had seemed insignificant, that built up over time into a wave so large and gradual he never felt himself slipping, as grand and insurmountable as the curve of the Earth itself.

Looking back, he realizes that even now, he is sitting at a fleeting juncture, his gaze an ever-changing tangent as he tries and fails to see the first point where something had moved. Sometime, while he had been too wrapped up in looking, talking, laughing, _sharing_ , a change had occurred. It had been small, perfectly so, yet it is everything that now fills his head with dizzying realization.

 _I want to be happy_ , Hakyeon thinks, and the feeling is stronger than it’s been in a long time, multiplied in urgency with a new longing that has been building up in his heart.

With the way Taekwoon lingers over every note, gentle and tender and fond, Hakyeon wonders exactly how someone could _not_ fall in love.

 _I want to be happy together with_ him.

And then the song is sweeping the words away again, a steady stream of fresh wind blowing through Hakyeon’s chest in a flurry of memories and experiences condensed into emotion and sound. Hakyeon listens with unconcealed wonder at the bits and pieces of his own life, his voice, and his heart embedded like a few glittering stars in the endless expanse that he recognizes to be Taekwoon.

Lying there, hearing the rich music that pours out of the tiny corner of the world Taekwoon inhabits, Hakyeon thinks maybe being small is just a perspective, just a matter of who is looking.

The tears begin to fall. Taekwoon’s voice is stunning, but there is a sense of loss at the thought that he might never hear something like that in his life again. Eventually, Taekwoon’s voice will fade and take with it the supernatural beauty that sucks the energy from Hakyeon’s limbs and drowns him in its sound.

It is simultaneously self-defining and self-questioning. Even as he sings the very essence of his being into the song, there is an undercurrent of uncertainty that jabs at the tender spot in Hakyeon’s own heart, resurfaced after the night Sunggyu appeared before them. It is a cry for help, a torrent of doubts that boils down to a single question: _Who am I?_

_Who will I be when I no longer have my curse?_

He doesn’t know how to answer.

He doesn’t know how to answer, but Hakyeon thinks that even without the headiness of magic and power, Taekwoon’s voice deserves to be somewhere else, with more than his present audience of one. It deserves to exist outside this tiny, empty space. It carries a sound that is meant to be heard and Hakyeon knows that it is too great a thing for him to hoard alone in his own heart.

The song ends with a note soft enough to slip through Hakyeon’s ribs, smooth enough to flush away everything but the heavy peace in his chest. Slowly, the feeling rushes back to his limbs and he sits up to see Taekwoon’s face, anxious and filled with hope.

“Thank you for letting me hear that,” Hakyeon says when he can form full sentences again. “It was too beautiful for words.”

Something sweet blooms in Hakyeon’s chest at Taekwoon’s answering smile.

\--

There is a change after Taekwoon sings for Hakyeon.

It’s not so momentous as to affect the entire city. Public unrest continues to increase, even after more subjects of the Census Bureau’s study begin to come out, one by one, to speak about their experiences. The unspoken countdown continues, but there is another change within the private bounds of his life that, without question, stems from the tiny, enormous occurrence in their living room, and it’s just big enough for him to notice.

He sees it in the way Hakyeon always seems to hover at the edge of his sight, how he always seems to look away just as Taekwoon glances at him, how his touches linger longer, not insistent or even intentional.

There is change within Taekwoon, too. He feels the edge of the magic seeping away, and some days he dares to toe the line, projecting his voice as boldly as he dares, even though the thought of the pool of silence fading is tinged with sadness.

One day, he will lose that ethereal sound, feather-light and unworldly, forever.

One day, he will stand out in the open without reservation and _sing_.

“Would you be sad?” Hakyeon asks one night while they’re sitting together on his bed, their legs stretched out, his laptop balanced between their knees. He has the screen paused in the middle of some old crime film with a convoluted plot that Taekwoon has already forgotten.

Their legs are pressed together and Taekwoon can feel the exact line where the cold surrounding Hakyeon’s body starts, in the middle of his thigh.

“About?”

“Losing your curse.”

“Yes,” Taekwoon answers truthfully. It’s the answer to the question that Hakyeon asked, but not the one he meant. “When I was young, I used to envy Sunggyu. My parents and I knew from the very beginning that my curse was the type that was very dangerous to take to the outside. I always thought that he was so lucky for getting to travel across the country and seeing what the outside was like.”

He gnaws on his lip for a bit, stewing on the other question. Hakyeon waits for him to fully form his thoughts. “I don’t know if I would be happier without it, though. Now that I know it’ll really happen, I’m scared that there’ll be nothing tying me to this city. I’m scared I won’t belong anywhere anymore.”

Hakyeon sighs. “Me too. I don’t know who I’ll be when it’s gone,” he confesses. “I don’t like it, though. I think I even hated it for a while, but it’s a part of me.” His voice breaks towards the end and he visibly droops. He drops his hands, fiddling with the outer seam of his jeans.

“I used to think I was a dancer, but even that’s gone now. The only thing left to define me as a person is my curse, and I can’t begin to imagine how I would be me without it, or how I would live. I don’t even know what it’s like to touch another person with the same temperature.”

He breaks off with a ragged sigh. “I don’t know.”

Taekwoon reaches out and takes the hand closest to him, lacing their fingers together and catching Hakyeon’s attention.

“You are Hakyeon,” Taekwoon says, and it doesn’t even begin to encompass what he really means. For anyone else, it’s just another statement but for Hakyeon, it’s an open gate—the start of a story—each word measured and deliberate and slow. “You are Hakyeon. You are kind and considerate and observant. You are slow to trust but quick to comfort. You are eloquent and graceful and pushy and loud. You are understanding and stubborn and loving and beautiful. I don’t know anyone else like you.”

Hakyeon stares back at him, eyes bright with unshed tears. When he speaks, it is in a whisper. “All these things are me because of my curse.”

“You are these things because of your curse, yes,” Taekwoon agrees. “But you will be these things even when it is gone.”

Hakyeon doesn’t speak again, because it is enough. His fingers tighten in Taekwoon’s grip and they stay like that, shoulder to shoulder, leg to leg, and palm to palm, seeking some sort of equilibrium. They aren’t quite the same temperature, even long after the movie ends, but Taekwoon’s body heat is enough to turn Hakyeon’s side lukewarm rather than icy.

They’re somewhat closer to a balance, and it’s a start.

\--

“Do you want to come with me to pick up Sanghyuk?” Hakyeon asks one night as Taekwoon’s helping him touch up his roots in the bathroom.

He tries to sound casual but ends up fiddling with his plastic gloves anyway as he waits for Taekwoon to finish staring down at the brush, still covered in a mix of cheap conditioner and purple dye. The crinkle of the gloves is loud in the silence.

“I thought it might be nice for you to meet my friends,” Hakyeon blurts when he’s waited long enough to gather that an answer may not be forthcoming. “My old roommates.”

“Maybe next time,” Taekwoon finally says, gnawing on his lip.

Hakyeon allows himself a very small smile, leaning against the sink. “You mean that, right?”

Taekwoon relaxes, dropping the brush back into the tub of dye before it drips. “Yes. We have time.”

It’s a strange concept, such an open future. Maybe in the spring, Taekwoon would be ready, or maybe next fall or even maybe long after Sanghyuk graduates, Hakyeon will drive out with Taekwoon sitting in the passenger seat and they will go together to a place that Hakyeon once called home, to a place that existed in Hakyeon’s heart before Taekwoon had showed up. It’s a melding of times, a blend of different parts of Hakyeon’s life, and he finds he’s not as averse to it as he might have been once upon a time.

“Okay,” Hakyeon agrees. “We have time.”

Fall fades into winter, cold enough for Hakyeon to drop the layer of cool air he wraps around himself during the other seasons. Time passes and the city doesn’t really move on from the reality that change is approaching, but the rising number of curse-related public disturbances and CMC intervention starts to become normal in the news. Once again, Hakyeon is struck by how quickly the concept of normality shifts, even as his own life begins to form a constant.

He builds a routine around himself like one would build a suit of armor, planning meals and scheduling chores and visiting home every other week until it seems as if he never lived any other way, learning the small events and anniversaries of Taekwoon’s life and melding them into his own.

Taekwoon’s birthday comes and goes, as Hongbin and Wonsik and Jaehwan and even Sanghyuk over video chat takes a crack at him about getting older again. Hakyeon laughs, even if he has more than four months on Taekwoon, and they later celebrate being the same age again in the privacy of their kitchen with just the two of them and a case of beer.

The roads ice over like they always do at that time of year, the weather immovable even with reports of a brief mutant plant rampage downtown and two fires in a suburb on the east side of town. Hakyeon stops eating as many popsicles and Taekwoon wears more sweaters than ever at home, but nothing really changes otherwise.

Soon, it’s time to pick Sanghyuk up again.

This time, when Hakyeon leaves, there are only four people sending him off. It seems like a tradition now, for the line of goodbyes beside the idling car, all hidden in the shadow under the wall.

The sky is icy and stormy gray, filled with swirls of white flakes buffeted by strong winds, and Hakyeon wears only a soft long-sleeved shirt, thin enough to feel the snow against his skin. It’s winter and he can’t help but think of the last box of cigarettes he had opened almost a year ago, still worn and slightly crumpled somewhere in his sock drawer. He hasn’t smoked at all this winter.

There might be time for that later, he knows, but the urge has faded for now.

One by one, he says his goodbyes, taking messages for Sanghyuk and hugs for himself.

“Did you bring a coat, hyung?” Wonsik asks.

“You worry too much,” Hakyeon says with an affectionate cuff to Wonsik’s head.

“They issued a storm warning this morning,” he insists. “The meteorologists didn’t see it coming at all, apparently.”

“I brought a jacket,” Hakyeon sighs. “It’s in the car.”

“Be careful with the car,” Jaehwan tells him anxiously. Hakyeon is sure any engine failure could be blamed on the vehicle’s age at this point, rather than Hakyeon’s lack of caution.

“I’ll do my best,” he says anyway.

“Make sure Hyukkie brings back that shirt he borrowed from me,” Hongbin says. “I know he’s going to try and forget it on purpose if you don’t remind him.”

Hakyeon rolls his eyes, but nods.

“Be safe,” Taekwoon whispers into Hakyeon’s ear, too low for anyone else to hear. He’s last, and Hakyeon takes his time memorizing the feeling of warmth enveloping him, rare in the colder months, as he buries his face in Taekwoon’s shoulder.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows he is making the moment more intimate than necessary, but Hakyeon has never been anything but natural in front of Taekwoon, and he feels no hesitation in baring his soul before the other man.

He hardly notices himself rest a hand along Taekwoon’s neck and lean in until their lips are pressed together, soft and deliberate. He lets his lashes flutter shut and feels Taekwoon sink into the kiss, tilting his head to deepen it just slightly before Hakyeon draws back.

There is a brief moment where he realizes the full extent of what a kiss entails and his insides squirm, but the feeling disappears as he takes in the slow spread of Taekwoon’s lips into a wide, unabashed smile.

“I can’t tell if that was the first time this has happened,” Hongbin mutters from somewhere behind them, and Hakyeon laughs, getting into the car.

Taekwoon catches his hand one last time through the window, dropping a brief kiss on his temple, and then he is driving out the gate, the vast, roiling sky and wide, unbroken pavement unfurling before him as far as the eye can see.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which all things fade with time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for mentions of bullying, recreational drinking, some anxiety, and a snow storm that causes minor injury/a lot of emotional distress

The drive is quiet this time, punctuated only by the soft buzz of the radio as Hakyeon drifts in and out of range of various stations.

There’s a bit of light rain in the first thirty minutes and Hakyeon is briefly grateful that Wonsik was so insistent about the jacket. His cold temperature keeps snow frozen and easy to brush off, but it doesn’t prevent him from getting soaked when it rains. The drizzle soon stops, though, and the car interior lapses into silence again.

He stops at the same family restaurant for lunch, and the owner’s wife doesn’t remember him when she comes to take his order.

“I’m going to pick up a friend from school,” he tells her.

“Oh? Did you come from around that magic place?” she asks again.

He nods, tensing a little as her mouth rounds in surprise.

“I’m taking him home for break,” he says carefully.

“I heard the news,” she clucks sympathetically. “It must have been quite a shock.”

He relaxes a little. “Thank you, it is.”

They chat a little about curses, moving on to more inane topics like the weather when she comes back for the bill. Maybe next time, she’ll recognize his face.

In the car, he pulls out his phone and only lets his finger hover over the number for a moment before he dials, setting it on speaker as he pulls out of the parking lot.

“Hakyeon?”

It’s just a single word, but Taekwoon’s voice over the phone manages to make Hakyeon feel like he’s floating. He smiles so hard it hurts.

“Taekwoon, how are you doing?”

“Just started my lunch break. It’s been raining a bit,” Taekwoon says. “It started about an hour after you left.”

“You didn’t forget your umbrella, did you?” Hakyeon teases gently. “You know I’m not there to lend you mine.”

He can practically hear Taekwoon blushing over the phone.

“That was one time,” he grumbles.

“Too bad,” Hakyeon laughs before he can stop himself. “Your cookies were so good.”

“I’ll make them anytime for you,” Taekwoon says, solemn and serious, and this time, it’s Hakyeon’s turn to fluster.

He grips the steering wheel, biting his lip. “Make me some when I get back.”

“What color sprinkles?”

“Blue.”

Taekwoon pretends to consider for a bit. “Okay.” He’s quiet for a moment. “We should talk when you get back. About us.” He lays emphasis on the _us_.

Hakyeon aches to talk _now_ , but he knows Taekwoon deserves his full attention, face to face.

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Was it okay, though?” Hakyeon blurts. “It was kind of out of the blue, I’m sorry.” Taekwoon had smiled at him when he pulled away. He had kissed back, but maybe it had been in the heat of the moment. Hakyeon knows better—he _knows_ Taekwoon—but he can’t help but worry. “I probably should’ve warned you or, I don’t know, waited for a better time or—”

“It was good.” Taekwoon says the word _good_ like it means _exceptional_ or _extraordinary_.

“Okay.” Hakyeon eases back into the seat, biting back another grin. It’s only one word, but he knows Taekwoon will hear the excitement bubbling in his tone. “Okay.”

He arrives at Wongeun and Jisoo’s apartment around six, sending a quick text as he parks and turns off the ignition.

[6:02pm] Jisoo: we’re at home come in hyung

They go out for _bulgolgi_ at a place that opened a few months ago. It’s cheap and their booth is surrounded by tables of raucous college students. It feels familiar, and Hakyeon slowly eases into the atmosphere as Wongeun and Jisoo without even opening the menus.

“The food’s just okay,” Wongeun confesses over the hubbub, “but it feels like we’re in college again, so we keep coming back.”

Just like before, Jisoo gets drunk too quickly and Wongeun’s smiles start becoming looser as the night wears one. This time, Hakyeon drinks a little with them, feeling the alcohol loosen his smile.

“So, hyung, how’s the family business?” Wongeun asks when Jisoo lays his forehead to the tacky table surface for a brief respite.

“I’m still a florist,” Hakyeon rolls his eyes. “But my dad gets to come in and complain about the displays once in a while.”

Wongeun laughs. “He probably just comes to visit you. It must be lonely living by yourself in the attic.”

“No way. He almost never visits. He’s comfortably retired at home.” Hakyeon shakes his head. “And I’m not living there anymore. I moved in with a friend.”

“Oh?” Wongeun cocks a head. “Hyung, you have friends?”

“Shut up,” Hakyeon scowls, smacking him across the table. He jostles Jisoo as he pulls back, drawing out a groan. “If I don’t have friends, then what are you two?”

“We were your friends before you moved. That’s different,” Wongeun laughs. “I meant new friends where you live.”

“I made a lot of friends,” Hakyeon says defensively. “I’m a friendly person.”

Wongeun gives him a blank look.

“Do you think I’m not friendly?” Hakyeon demands.

“Hn.” Jisoo turns his head so he cheek is resting on the table, peering up at Hakyeon with bright eyes. “You’re friendly, hyung, but you almost never make friends. It’s like,” he pauses for a moment to close his eyes and think, “you’re really careful about getting close to people, so it’s kind of surprising you’re living with someone you’ve known for only a year or so.”

“Huh.” Hakyeon purses his lips. “If you put it that way, I guess you’re right.” He hesitates. “Although I guess he’s not just a friend.”

Wongeun frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I guess I’ve been seeing him?” Hakyeon tests the words on his tongue, and finds them surprisingly easy to say. He smiles to himself.

Wongeun’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. He slams his hands onto the table, jostling Jisoo and eliciting another groan. “Wait, really?”

Hakyeon nods, a smile growing on his face.

Wongeun squints. Holds out a hand. “Pictures. I don’t believe you.”

Hakyeon reaches for his phone and pauses. “I don’t have any.”

“That sounds suspicious.”

“I’m not lying,” Hakyeon holds up his hands. “Really, would I lie about that kind of thing?”

“I believe you, hyung. You’re too flustered to be lying,” Jisoo says, the words slightly distorted by his cheek pressed into the table. “Congratulations. I’m happy for you.”

“Really?” Wongeun peers at him skeptically.

“I swear,” Hakyeon says, grinning.

“That’s really great, hyung,” Wongeun exhales, smiling back. “Tell us about him.”

Hakyeon always has a lot to say. He finds he has even more to say than usual.

\--

Wongeun helps him pull out the guest futon at home, after they pour two glasses of water down Jisoo’s throat and lay him in his bed. Hakyeon surveys his old room, shared with Wongeun, and the empty space where his own bed used to lie. He had left it for Wongeun and Jisoo to deal with when he moved, and it had still been there the last time he visited.

“Are you going to get another roommate?” Hakyeon asks, pointing at the empty space.

“Probably not. We couldn’t find a good match, so we sold your old bed.” Wongeun shrugs. “We subleased it to a friend of a friend for a while, but he was only here on temporary business. It’s not like we don’t make enough to cover the rent between two people.”

The next morning finds Wongeun with his head stuffed under his pillow, dead to the world, and Jisoo moaning quietly as the light from the open window hits his eye.

Hakyeon lays on the futon, staring up at the ceiling, until he’s fully awake. It’s still early, but he’s used to getting up to open the shop, and he can’t quite get rid of the habit anymore. After shooting Taekwoon a quick text, he takes a quick shower, washing off the grime from the day before, and brushes his teeth.

When he gets out, he sets about scrounging as many ingredients as he can from Wongeun and Jisoo’s refrigerator for breakfast. He finds a few eggs, a block of expired tofu, and half a carton of milk. With a sigh, he sets them to fry on a pan.

Soon, Jisoo stumbles into the kitchen, squinting at the windows mutinously, and Hakyeon hands him a plate. They chew over the eggs quietly, and Hakyeon scrolls through his phone as he waits for Jisoo to wake up enough to talk.

“Hyung, what are your plans for today?” Jisoo asked when he can finally open his eyes all the way.

Hakyeon shrugs. “Whatever you want. I can walk around or just stay at home until you guys get off work.”

“Sorry about that, hyung,” Jisoo says as he chews. “Neither of us could get a day off.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Hakyeon pats his hand. “I’ve lived here long enough to not get lost.”

At ten, once Jisoo and Wongeun are both out, Hakyeon pockets his wallet and locks up with the spare key, taking the stairs down two at a time. He leaves his car where it’s parked, opting to walk to the bus station and wait for the same line he used to take to get to school. His old pass isn’t valid anymore, but he has enough cash on him to get around the city in a day.

It’s strange walking around the university, because he can see that nothing’s really changed. Sure, there’s a fast food chain in the place the old pet store used to be, and one of the science buildings is closed for renovations, but it’s still recognizably the same school he once attended.

The one that’s changed, he realizes, is himself, and he doesn’t know how he feels standing on the edge of a field he’s sat in for hours on end in the winter, bundled in a coat to avoid strange glances, as he worked on biology assignments.

He sits down anyway, for old times’ sake, and drinks in the chill that rides on each gust of wind, fanning out his hair and nudging under his coat. It’s strong enough to deter most of the students who walk by, so he’s mostly alone.

After a while, he gets up and walks around to get a drink at his old favorite café. The baristas are new, but the taste of their coffee is the same. He strolls around downtown, just a few blocks down from campus, as he waits for it to cool. He doesn’t go inside any of the shops, but he recognizes them anyway, filing them away in his memory as his eyes trace all the familiar signs and even some of the new ones.

In the late afternoon, when the shadows are significantly stretched in the weak winter sun, he takes the bus back to the apartment. The line passes a worn brick building with stone steps and white columns at its entrance, and Hakyeon lets himself gaze at the old dance academy as the bus drives by. He watches the students trickle out, leggings and loose shirts bundled under layers of winter outerwear. He smells hair spray, feels the rub of calluses under his toes, and sees the glisten of sweat reflected in the mirror.

He hears the thump of soft-soled shoes against waxed wood, imagines the dim glow of light in the practice room long past midnight, and can almost make out the dull thud of music resonating with his heartbeat, and he thinks that there is much more to fear in the future than in the past.

\--

That night, Hakyeon drifts around the living room as Wongeun and Jisoo scroll through social media on the couch, surveying the plants. He’s satisfied to see that Jisoo has since repotted most of them, this time using the proper types of soil.

He’s adjusting the leaves of an orchid when his phone begins to ring.

“Hakyeon,” Taekwoon’s voice drifts into his ear when he picks up. There’s a little more static than normal, but the sound still sends a spot of affection sprouting in Hakyeon’s chest. “How are you doing?”

“Taekwoon,” he breathes, a small smile tugging involuntarily at his lips. Wongeun looks up, raising an eyebrow. He flushes and lowers his voice. “Really well. They took me to a _bulgolgi_ place. I think you’d like it.”

Taekwoon lets out a soft hum. “That sounds nice. You didn’t have any trouble driving up?”

“It was fine. I’ve made the trip before.”

“I see. The storm’s been getting pretty bad today,” Taekwoon says. “They issued another warning in the afternoon. I thought you were through it for most of the trip.”

Hakyeon frowns, thinking of the weather on his drive up. “It rained a little right after I left, but the weather’s been clear the whole day.”

“What?” Taekwoon sounds like he might be troubled, but Hakyeon can’t tell. The static has been growing in his ear. “It’s been raining badly the entire day. It’s turning into a snow storm, I think.”

“ _What?_ ” Hakyeon demands. “That doesn’t make sense. There hasn’t been anything on the weather forecast about weather this severe.”

“I know. We’re waiting for the Meteorological Administration to tell us what’s going on sometime tonight,” Taekwoon sighs. His voice sounds cracklier by the second. “It sounds like they don’t know either, though.”

“Okay, keep me updated,” Hakyeon says. “I’m going to hang up. The reception’s getting bad.”

“Alright.” Taekwoon’s soft voice is almost completely swallowed by noise. “See you tomorrow, if everything goes well. Maybe you should stay out if the storm gets worse.”

“We’ll see. Be careful,” he says right before hanging up.

Hakyeon wakes the next morning to ten text notifications from Taekwoon and a missed call from Sanghyuk. He calls again just as Hakyeon finishes scrolling through Taekwoon’s messages.

“Did you hear?” Sanghyuk demands as soon as he picks up. “It’s not a storm.”

“Technically,” Hakyeon says. “It’s still got the same characteristics, but in an extremely concentrated area.”

“Still, the person who’s generating it has got to be really upset or insanely strong,” Sanghyuk says. “Have you heard from Jaehwan-hyung?”

“Taekwoon says he got home safely after work last night. Most stores are closed today, so he should be fine.”

“My calls aren’t going through,” Sanghyuk says, worry clear in his tone.

“I’m coming to get you right now,” Hakyeon says, tucking his phone between his shoulder and ear as he dresses. “I’ll be there in less than three hours.”

Sanghyuk rushes out of the dorm as soon as Hakyeon pulls up the curb, barely giving the cars behind them time to honk before he’s leaping into the passenger side, buckling his seatbelt.

“Have you heard from Jaehwan?” Hakyeon asks as he weaves through traffic.

“Not yet,” Sanghyuk says, expression tight. “I checked the news ten minutes ago, though, and the CMC’s been having trouble locating the source of the storm.”

“Do they know who’s causing it?”

“No. They think it’s a kid, though, because it’s been fluctuating pretty badly. It died down a little last night, so they probably got tired.”

“Are they going to set up a containment barrier?”

“They haven’t announced what they’ve been doing, but that’s what normally happens,” Sanghyuk says. “The barriers reflect magic, though, so the effects of the curse would get stronger as the barrier gets smaller.”

“They’d have to evacuate the people inside,” Hakyeon realizes.

“Yeah,” Sanghyuk nods. “I’m guessing that’s why they’re having trouble. It happened once when I was in middle school. They had to close off three blocks because some guy stabbed in a mugging and lost control of his curse. It was something similar to a sleeping drug, I think, and they were scared they would put people into comas if they set up a barrier. They had to put on anti-curse suits and search the premises until they found him lying in an alley and then put a barrier around him so they could put him in an ambulance.”

“This is a lot larger in scale than three blocks, though,” Hakyeon says, gut sinking. “What are they going to do if they can’t find the source?”

Sanghyuk doesn’t reply.

\--

They stop once for gas, taking turns to go to the bathroom as the tank fills. Sanghyuk buys them both sandwiches from a fast food place across the street as Hakyeon pays.

Eventually, Hakyeon’s lost sleep begins to catch up with him, and Sanghyuk switches out with him on emptier stretches of the highway as he naps in the passenger seat.

At about two in the afternoon, Hakyeon’s phone lights up with Jaehwan’s caller ID. Sanghyuk snatches it up before he can even touch it, putting it on speaker and holding it between them.

“—went through,” Taekwoon says.

Hakyeon’s chest fills with relief. “Taekwoon? Did the storm die down?”

Sanghyuk is already scrolling through his own phone in his other hand, checking for weather updates.

“Hakyeon.” Taekwoon’s voice is crackly, but clear. “Yes, just a little. It’s been getting weaker the last hour.”

“The CMCs haven’t said anything about it,” Sanghyuk says. “It’s probably temporary.”

“is everyone alright?” Hakyeon demands, forcing himself to keep his eyes on the road as Taekwoon hums.

“Everyone’s okay. The power went out last night, so we’re all at our place. It doesn’t seem to be as stormy here, and we’ve got a lot of candles.”

“You all went outside?” Hakyeon frowns. “That’s dangerous.”

“Only just earlier,” Taekwoon huffs. “The wind slowed us down, but we were fine walking. Are you on your way back?”

“We’ve got an hour left,” Sanghyuk tells him. “There’s no signs of any storm out here.”

“Maybe you should stay out until they clear it up,” Taekwoon says.

“No way,” Hakyeon says vehemently. “If you can walk outside, we’ll be fine in the car. Besides, if anyone would be okay in this kind of weather, it would be me.”

“Okay.” Taekwoon sounds doubtful. “Be careful, though. My phone’s dead and Jaehwan’s is almost out of battery, so I’m hanging up.”

“I’ve got a portable charger in the drawer next to my bed,” Hakyeon tells him. “I charged it before I left. It should be enough for one phone.”

“Thanks, Hakyeon. I’ll try to text.” The line clicks.

The sky darkens soon after. Within twenty minutes of the city, it begins to pour buckets. Hakyeon turns up the radio so they can hear it over the dull beat of rain on the windows.

The gates are open when they finally reach the walls. Hakyeon pulls up to the guard box, opening his window and balking as the wind hits his face. The familiar tingle of magic is heavy, and he shivers despite himself as it floods the air around him. Sanghyuk yelps behind him.

The guard on duty fights to lean as close to the window as he can without falling out of the box.

“Any news on the storm?” Hakyeon yells over the rain, willing the air to even in temperature in hopes of calming the wind. He only manages to slow down a small pocket, but it’s enough for his jacket to stop whipping him in the face.

“The CMCs are currently setting up a partial barrier,” the guard shouts back. “They’ve managed to evacuate within a one-mile radius of what they think is the source. It’s a kid, though, and they don’t want to scare her, so they’re going slow.”

“Her?”

“They’ve identified the person,” the guard nods. “It’s an eight-year-old girl. She lives a few blocks from the university.”

“That’s about two miles south of your place,” Sanghyuk says in his ear. “You’ll have to take a detour home.”

Hakyeon thanks the guard and leaves the window open a crack as they inch forward. Sanghyuk complains, but he ignores it as he lets the air blow over his face, taking in the tingle of magic and bursts of cold.

“I can’t believe they didn’t notice it was a curse for so long,” Hakyeon mutters.

Sanghyuk frowns, giving him a strange look. “Why?”

“The magic, of course. How can you not feel it?”

“I can’t feel anything,” Sanghyuk says. “What do you mean?”

Hakyeon frowns. “You can’t feel the tingling?”

“Well, I can when I say something wrong in front of Wonsik-hyung or someone else uses their curse on me, but there’s nothing now,” Sanghyuk says slowly. “You can feel it?”

“It’s making my entire back itch,” Hakyeon squirms. “Maybe it’s because I have a similar type of curse.”

“Close the window, then.”

“I need to be sure we’re not driving into a danger zone.” Hakyeon waves at the rain lashing against the windshield. “You can barely see anything out the window.”

Sanghyuk sighs, leaning back in his seat.

“Any reception?”

“Nope.” Sanghyuk fiddles with his phone. “I can’t even check for updates anymore.”

Hakyeon squints as a swarm of red tail lights appear somewhere far in front. “I think there’s traffic ahead.”

“Shit,” Sanghyuk swears.

“Language,” Hakyeon says absently.

A moment later, barely audible, Hakyeon hears something like a sigh.

“What?” he asks, gripping at the steering wheel. The tail lights are a lot closer, now. He slows to a stop behind the car in front, close enough to see the blinking red, yet he can’t read a single letter of the license plate.

“What?” Sanghyuk says.

“You said something earlier. Sorry, I didn’t hear.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Hakyeon blinks, glancing to the side. Sanghyuk frowns back.

“Are you sure? I heard something.”

“It could’ve been the wind,” Sanghyuk offers. “It’s kind of loud, you know?”

“I can tell when it’s the wind. It was a person,” Hakyeon insists. He pauses, and in the silence, there is distinctly a human voice. “Hear that?”

“I don’t hear anything.” Sanghyuk shakes his head. “Hyung, what the hell?”

Hakyeon holds up a hand, leaning to the side so his ear is to the crack in the window. The wind that whistles in his ears slows a little, and he hears it again, louder this time.

It sounds too young and high to be Sanghyuk, and Hakyeon can’t hear distinct words, but there is a distinct voice tucked in the wind.

“She’s crying,” Hakyeon realizes.

“‘She?’”

“I can hear a child crying,” Hakyeon mutters.

_“Help.”_

Hakyeon jolts.

“Fuck, hyung.” Sanghyuk jumps. “How are you hearing a child? There’s no way anyone’s still outside.” His eyes widen. “Unless—”

_“Help!”_

Something uncomfortable churns in his gut. His mind unwittingly flashes to memories of warm grass tickling his cheek, cold wind swirling around him, and the sound of children playing very, very far away.

The feeling of ice gliding under his palms, and the whispers of children, too scared to speak. He told himself he hadn’t cared then, that having the slide to himself was enough, but he knew better.

 “I need to go to her.”

“Hyung, you can’t!” Sanghyuk waves his arms. “Have you taken a look out the window in the last twenty minutes?!”

 Hakyeon grips the steering wheel, hard. “I can’t just _leave_ her.”

“The CMCs exist for a reason,” Sanghyuk hisses. “It’s dangerous out there!”

Hakyeon closes the window, but he can still hear the sound of the wind howling as rain and sludge battered the windows.

He can’t hear her voice, but he remembers, anyway.

Waking up to a soaked pillow, feeling the heat coat his throat and wrap around his skin and squeeze him, _hard_.

Walking outside in the dead of winter with only a t-shirt, feeling the wind brush his skin.

Ugly sneers and sharp words.

_You’re different. They won’t like that you’re different._

But he was the same.

“In this entire city, I’m the most likely to survive walking around outside right now,” Hakyeon says dryly. “I’ll take a jacket, don’t worry.”

“Hyung—”

Hakyeon is already wrestling with his jacket, reaching for the door handle. “She needs me. Make sure you stay in the car, no matter what.”

He’s out before Sanghyuk can shout, slamming the door shut behind him.

\--

“It looks like the storm’s quieting down a little,” Jaehwan remarks, face pressed to the window.

“They said they were setting up a partial barrier,” Hongbin says, not looking up from his book. “It’s probably starting to transition into a full barrier by now.”

“Do you think a call could go through?” Jaehwan asks. “I still need to contact Hyukkie.”

Before he can move for his phone, Taekwoon’s ringtone begins to hum in his pocket. He raises an eyebrow, quickly picking up at the sight of the caller ID as he catches Jaehwan’s eye, pointing to himself.

“Sanghyuk? Where are you?”

“Hyung!” He sounds breathless, panicked. “I’m in Jaehwan-hyung’s car. Hakyeon-hyung’s gone.”

His heart feels like it’s dropping through his feet. “What? Where is he?”

“He left an hour ago,” Sanghyuk says, and it sounds like he wants to cry. “I’m still stuck in traffic. He said heard the little girl crying or something, and he needed to go.”

“Little girl? Hyuk, what are you talking about?”

“The girl who’s causing the storm. You know, the one they’re putting in the barrier right now. He said he could hear her crying over the wind, and then he ran out of the car, and I haven’t heard back from him for an entire hour. I’ve been trying to call him nonstop since then.”

“What? _Why?_ ”

“I don’t know! I don’t even know where he is right now!”

Taekwoon blanches, brain whirring. “He’s not answering his phone?”

“None of my calls have been going through,” Sanghyuk says. “He’s probably inside the barrier by now. There’s no way he’s going to have signal in there.”

Taekwoon curses, running to the bedroom. He fumbles in his closet, ripping out his snow gear as he tucks the phone between his shoulder and ear.

“Hyung, what’s going on?” Jaehwan’s frowning in the doorway. “Is something wrong with Hakyeon-hyung?”

“Hakyeon ran out to go help that little girl who’s causing the storm,” Taekwoon summarizes briefly. “I need to go find him.”

“What?” Jaehwan’s eyes widen. “What the fuck? That’s way too dangerous.”

“Who knows where he is?” Taekwoon says, and it’s as close to shouting as he’s ever been. “He could be hurt out there, and we have no way of knowing.”

“Are you going to run after him, then?” Jaehwan demands. “Hakyeon-hyung at least doesn’t have to worry about freezing to death outside. What about you? What can you do?”

Taekwoon glares. “I can scream.”

Sanghyuk inhales sharply. Jaehwan stares at him, gaze flat.

“You don’t mean that.”

Taekwoon sighs. “No, I don’t. But I will if I have to. Does that make you feel better?”

“No, but it seems like you’re not going to listen to me.” Jaehwan crosses his arms. “Okay then, make sure you put on every damn coat in your closet. And keep your phone on you at all times.”

Taekwoon hugs him when he leaves.

Outside, the weather is still harsher than normal, but it’s died down enough that he can just tuck his chin into the bundle of his scarf and mostly ignore it. He squints against the ice, shuffling through thick piles of snow in the direction of the half-dome barrier, shimmering in the distance.

As he gets closer, he can feel the winds picking up again, tugging insistently at his clothes. There are a few people milling around the CMC vehicles, trying to get a good shot of the barrier and the storm inside. He stands around them, trying to pick up snippets of conversation.

“Excuse me,” he asks a woman fiddling with her phone. “Do you know when they’ll be done setting up the barrier?”

She eyes the white figures shuffling around in the snow. “Half an hour, at most? They’re almost done.”

Taekwoon nods. “Thank you.”

He waits for a few more minutes, watching along with the other gawkers, before he slips around to a more deserted street. He waits for the opportune moment to slip under the caution tape and walks through the barrier without another glance back.

The first wind hits him in the face at full blast. He feels it shoot into his eyes and ears and wonders if he’s imagining how angry it sounds.

He opens his mouth, and there is instantly a flood of cold air and snow burning his tongue and throat. He shuts it with a bit of a struggle, coughing into his fist when it’s closed.

The inside of the barrier is nearly white with snow, blocking most of the visibility from the outside. Unfortunately, this also means that Taekwoon has no way of seeing more than five feet in front of him. He tries to curse, but the words get swept away in the storm along with his breath, and he eventually gives up.

 _Hakyeon_ , he thinks as the snow gets deeper the further he walks, almost knee-deep now. There is no answer but the wind, almost sad as it wails in his ears. His entire face is numb, and his brain keeps producing terrible images of Hakyeon lying somewhere, unconscious under six inches of snow.

 _Hakyeon_ , he thinks, breath coming fast as he tires. There’s no one in sight, and he can’t tell if he’s crying anymore. Somewhere, there is a little girl calling for help and there is Hakyeon, running through a snowstorm to comfort her.

Hakyeon, who always surrounds himself with an impenetrable barrier, yet lets Taekwoon hold his hand in the summer.

Hakyeon, who says he is greedy even as he gives pieces of himself away until he thinks there is nothing left, even when Taekwoon knows better.

Hakyeon, who is numb from the ice in his own heart, who is small from letting go, who still cries from hearing Taekwoon’s voice.

 _Hakyeon_ , he thinks, but he’s not thinking anymore.

He opens his mouth against the winds, magic fortifying his breath, and he _screams_.

He yells until his throat scratches, and it’s still not enough. There’s panic in his gut, in his throat, coating his tongue and choking him hoarse, flooding him even as he tries to let it all out in one long, ragged wail.

He sobs until the storm rushes in, beating down his angry cries with a force that is young and strong and reminds him that he is weakening, that he is selfish and plain and helpless to do anything but cry.

 _Thank you_ , Hakyeon had said. _That was too beautiful for words_.

All those weeks ago, Taekwoon had sung the most beautiful song he could find in the depths of his heart.

He had waited, let the pain and the suffering and the sores fade into hope, except they were back now at the mere thought of Hakyeon taking so many burdens onto himself. This unbridled yell, it is not the song he sang for Hakyeon.

It is ugly and discordant and thoughtless, and Taekwoon is scared.

This is not a beautiful song. It is a broken arm at the age of five. It is a bird dropping out of the sky, and it is his sister, frozen stiff with fear and horror, nothing to catch her as she falls.

He curls into himself, wishing for strength as he claps a hand over his mouth to trap in enough air to sob. Hakyeon is trapped somewhere in the storm, possibly paralyzed because of _Taekwoon_ , and he can do nothing but inhale breath after disgustingly weak breath as he tries not to scream again.

He tries to rise, and finds he cannot, exhaustion and panic locking his legs.

 _Calm_ , he thinks to himself, trying to tamp down the anger. The wind seems to be picking up, and he can barely move.

 _What did you think you were doing?_ he thinks to himself bitterly. _There is nothing you can do to help._

Even as he swallows it down with anxious breaths, there is something building in the back of his throat. It is desperate and hasty, and he loathes himself because Hakyeon is alone and there is a city waiting outside and a little girl crying somewhere, and all Taekwoon can think of is a single, useless song.

 _Be careful_ , they told him.

_Don’t sing._

_Don’t hum._

_Don’t yell._

_Be quiet._

And he was careful.

_Thank you._

_That was too beautiful for words._

He buries his face in his hands and, in a voice that is too small and too shaky and too hesitant, he begins to hum.

_Would you be sad?_

He thinks of Hakyeon’s smile as he sat on the piano bench, the final note still echoing through the room.

He thinks of the sureness in his voice when he had answered.

He thinks of Hakyeon’s reply.

No.

I don’t know.

He hums, and the wind shrieks back.

_I don’t know._

Something in his spine tingles, and he thinks, _Magic_.

He thinks, _Magic_ , and he answers with his own, the words quiet and torn and careful.

He might be imagining it, but the storm almost seems to soften, and it is still wild and loud and, but it is also young and powerful and afraid.

 _Help_.

The voice isn’t his.

He jerks, and the song stutters.

 _Help_.

Somewhere, there is a little girl crying, and Taekwoon thinks of a boy sitting in his backyard, pushing back the tears because tears are loud and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

Somewhere, there is a little girl crying, and Taekwoon knows why Hakyeon ran out of the car.

_Would you be sad?_

Yes.

He opens his mouth, and, because he can’t do anything else,

Because he is growing weak and small and scared and helpless,

Because he doesn’t have much time left,

He sings.

\--

Getting past the partial barrier hadn’t been a problem. It was still weak, barely set up when Hakyeon passed through, and the storm helped hide him.

Inside, though, the winds are even stronger. The cold itself doesn’t really affect him, but the wind and sleep crack sharply against his cheeks, and the rain still soaks him to the bone. In a storm of this size, there is nothing he can really do to calm the wind. Besides, it’s not _his_. He can feel, with every gust of air that batters at his body, that it belongs to someone else.

He hunkers down, curling into himself and crunching his feet deep into the snow to keep from being blown away. It helps, marginally, and he manages to dodge whatever debris is thrown his way, including part of a cardboard sign and a large tree branch.

He walks and walks and walks, guided by instinct and magic that tugs him along insistently.

He walks until he can’t feel his feet anymore, until he can’t tell the magic from the wind, and then he sees her.

She is small, much smaller than the storm raging around her.

She is slumped, snow gathering in a perfect circle around her feet.

“Hello,” he says, and he feels his voice quaver as he takes in her tiny form, crouching low over the packed snow.

She looks up, fear blowing her eyes wide, but he puts up his hands and bends down. “I’m sorry. I’m not here to hurt you or take you away. Are you causing the storm?”

She nods, shamefaced.

“What’s your name?”

She only hesitates a little before replying, “Yuna.”

“Hello, Yuna.” He reaches out a hand. “I’m Hakyeon.”

She takes his hand, clutching two of his fingers, and her eyes widen at the frost on his palm.

“It’s alright,” he says because she looks scared, and he knows what it’s like. “I’m the same.”

“Your hand is cold,” she says, and he recognizes the way she says it.

It is not, _You’re making me cold._

Or, _You’re not warm enough._

Because she is the same.

“That’s right. You’re cold too.”

“Are you normal?”

He frowns. “What?”

She hiccups, cheeks wet from tears and rain. “My teacher says that I’ll become a normal person when I grow up. Are you normal?”

He shakes his head, fighting to keep from grimacing as the wind rips at his thin shirt. “Not yet, no.”

She’s frowns, “But you’re so old already. Do I have to wait until I’m your age to be happy?”

Hakyeon smile, wry and sad, and brushes her hair from her face. The winds fades, just a little. “You don’t have to be normal to be happy, Yuna.”

She considers that for a moment. “I don’t believe you.”

“Has anyone told you otherwise?”

“The kids at school say that I’m a lot of trouble.” Her lower lip trembles. “I don’t want to be trouble.”

“I’ll tell you a secret,” he says, squatting down and fighting to lean in to her ear. “I was a lot of trouble when I was five too.”

“How did you make friends?”

“I didn’t.” Hakyeon’s smile is tighter this time.

“Then how did you get your friends now?”

“Friends?” Hakyeon frowns.

“They’re looking for you,” Yuna whispers, quiet with guilt. “They’re very worried.”

“How did you know about them?” Hakyeon asks.

“The storm told me.” She pauses frowning. “Well, it doesn’t _talk_ , but it tells me things.”

Hakyeon knows what she means. Even now, as the cold brushes up against his skin and crawls up inside his sleeves, he knows that it is foreign, not his.

She tugs on his sleeve to catch his attention, the wind plucking along with her fingers. “So? How did you make friends?”

“I couldn’t find good friends for a long time,” he admits. “But it took a long time to find people who loved me like I am now.”

“Even if you’re a lot of trouble?” Yuna squints.

“Even if I’m a lot of trouble,” he agrees.

She considers that for a while. “How long do I have to wait?”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I can’t say.”

“Oh.” Her lower lip trembles.

“I’m sorry,” Hakyeon repeats. Before he can say anything else, she stiffens, and the wind picks up for a brief moment. “Yuna, what’s—”

Something sharp and icy tears through him, a sensation so sudden he slips, doubling over.

 _It’s magic_ , he registers dimly, recognizing the shiver that racks his body and leaves him trembling and wrong-footed. It’s painfully strong, and above all, it’s a _voice_ , a heart-wrenchingly broken scream that tears a hole into his chest.

It’s Taekwoon, and he’s shouting a name.

Hakyeon barely manages to catch Yuna as her knees buckle. He lowers them both to the ground, leaning her against his side as he sits down. The sound isn’t loud enough to seize his limbs completely, but the magic still numbs his limbs, and he doesn’t want to risk either of them injuring themselves.

“Is that your friend?” she asks, disoriented.

“Yes.” Hakyeon winces as another shout carries through the wind, squeezing at his chest and pulling at his skin.

“Why does he sound so sad?”

“I think he’s worried about me,” Hakyeon says quietly, pulling his knees to his chest. “I ran out impulsively, and now he doesn’t know where I am.”

“Is it my fault?” Yuna’s voice is small. She curls in on herself.

“It’s not your fault.” Hakyeon gives her a small smile when it seems like she won’t believe him.

Another scream, and he winces as it pierces straight into his core.

“I don’t like that,” she says, staring at her knees. “It sounds like it hurts.”

“His voice is special,” Hakyeon replies. “It sounds like it hurts because he’s hurt.” He tries not to think about why Taekwoon sounds like that at all.

“Did he get hit by something?” There’s panic in her tone, but Hakyeon knows Taekwoon. He can barely move, limbs weak from Taekwoon’s voice.

“No. His heart hurts.”

“Why?”

“Because I hurt him.” Hakyeon’s voice breaks.

“Why?”

“He thinks I’m in pain, and he’s scared he can’t help me.”

Yuna begins to cry again, and Hakyeon can feel icy tears start to trace down his face, leaving trails of frost.

“Are you sad?” Yuna whispers, and he knows she is crying partly because Taekwoon’s voice is too powerful.

He nods.

“Why?”

 _Would you be sad?_ Hakyeon had asked once, and he’d never answered his own question.

“I love my curse,” he explains. “Sometimes, I hate it. I hate it so much, and I don’t ever want to be alone again. I’m scared of how it’ll be without it, though, and part of me doesn’t want to see it go.”

“Will I be like that too when I’m old?”

He laughs a little, the sound emerging slightly wet. “Maybe. You get used to it as you get older.”

The storm doesn’t stop, but Yuna droops.

“I don’t want to like it,” she says. “I want it to go away.”

The screaming slowly ends, and Hakyeon can feel his heart ache as he hears Taekwoon’s voice go hoarse.

“I don’t want it,” she cries, and she looks so lost, Hakyeon holds out his hand.

After a moment, she takes it. It’s not warm, but sometimes it’s nice to touch someone of the same temperature.

Taekwoon’s voice starts again, and Hakyeon can feel himself crying.

“He’s singing,” Yuna says.

“Yes,” Hakyeon whispers.

“Is he singing for you?”

“No. It’s for you.” Hakyeon’s voice breaks. “And himself. Do you like it?”

She pauses. “I don’t know.”

The voice is not full and round like before, but the song is familiar, and Hakyeon recognizes it for all the small differences, the flat notes and stuttering halts. It’s not more or less sincere than the last time heard it, but he can tell the difference.

“Do you like it?” Yuna asks him.

_Would you be sad?_

“Yes,” he says, and they lapse into silence, limbs weak and flopping, and listen to Taekwoon’s voice, carried by the wind.

In the howling storm, he sings.

And sings.

And sings.

\--

When the snow finally settles into soft peaks, Hakyeon wraps his jacket around Yuna’s shoulders. The sharp air nips at his skin in a way he has never felt before, and he knows, even though the feeling is foreign, that he feels the chill.

Yuna offers the jacket back, but he declines.

“It’s nice to wear a big coat sometimes,” he tells her, “even when you’re not cold.”

She grips his fingers with her small hands as they wait for the barrier to fall and the CMCs and ambulances to arrive.

They’re put through various tests by the EMTs as white-uniformed officers look on, sifting through the snow and taking down statements from the both of them. Midway through, a pair of crying, near-hysterical women arrive and envelope Yuna into a large hug, pausing only to shake Hakyeon’s hand as he smiles uncomfortably.

After they’re both declared healthy enough to go, the CMCs lead Yuna and her parents into one car and Hakyeon into another.

“Good luck,” he tells her before they close the door, and he can see her mouth repeating the words back through the window.

Before he can even think of running off to look for Taekwoon, he ends up in the police headquarters, sitting in a small room with a reflective panel of glass on the wall and an officer dressed in the CMC division’s white from head to toe.

“We just want to ask a few questions about this incident,” the man says, placing a cup of coffee and an energy bar in front of him. “I know you’re probably exhausted. Do you need anything?”

“Yes, I wanted to ask you something. Was there another man inside the barrier?” Hakyeon asks.

“There was, a few blocks from where you were. We picked him up too,” the officer says, raising an eyebrow. “You know him?”

“He’s my friend. I could hear his voice on the wind.” Hakyeon leans forward, heart thumping painfully. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine. A few minor scratches, but he’s cleared for frostbite or hypothermia. He wasn’t in there for very long.”

Hakyeon exhales with relief, slumping back into his chair. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Is that all?” the man asks. “Do you need anything else?”

Hakyeon shakes his head, then hesitates. “Can I get an iced coffee instead?”

It’s late when they finally finish and let him out. The officer ends on a half-hearted warning.

“I’d like to tell you that what you did was extremely dangerous and stupid, but that girl honestly needed you. We wouldn’t have gotten to her for another few hours, and it’s very possible she could have been hurt. The backlash from the recent announcement by the Census Bureau hasn’t been helping with public relations,” he sighs. “I’ll thank you this time on behalf of the department, but please don’t ever do this kind of thing again.”

Hakyeon shakes his head. “I don’t think I could.”

Outside, the streets are dark, and snow crunches under his shoes. The exhaustion pulls at his bones, a weary throb he feels through his whole body. Taekwoon hadn’t been in the waiting area of the station when he had walked out, so he presumably either left early or is still waiting inside.

It’s long past the last bus, and he needs to call Sanghyuk to apologize and Jaehwan to ask for a ride home. He staggers into an alley and slowly leans against the wall, pressing his temple to the cool brick. The world is quiet and only his ragged breaths puncture the silence. The air is cold enough that it burns a little in the back of his throat when he inhales deeply.

He closes his eyes for a brief moment, thinking back to another alleyway at night, barely illuminated by the flashing red lights of an intersection late at night. There had been snowflakes dancing around his hair and ice on the streets and a lit cigarette burning bright in his hand in the silence.

He doesn’t know how long he stays there, soaking in the cold, or what compels him to look up but when he opens his eyes, there is a figure standing before him.

“Oh,” Hakyeon says, an echo of his memory.

Taekwoon’s breath comes in gasps as he steps forward, stopping in front of Hakyeon. He’s holding a convenience store plastic bag that crinkles when he moves. Hakyeon detachedly registers that there are cans of coffee inside, both the hot and cold kind, before Taekwoon reaches out a hand in the space between them and links their pinkies together. It’s a small point of warmth connecting them, and Hakyeon lets himself stumble forward, exhausted.

\--

Hakyeon buries his face in Taekwoon’s neck, the frost dusting his skin melting at the heat of Taekwoon’s pulse. The plastic of the convenience bag rustles as he brings his hands up to cradle him closer.

“Hakyeon,” Taekwoon murmurs, feeling the first few warm tears brush down his face. They fall into Hakyeon’s hair and thaw small spots into the snow, revealing purple strands underneath. Taekwoon realizes that he isn’t speaking. “Were you hurt?”

Hakyeon lifts his face up. His expression is fond as he takes in Taekwoon’s breathless appearance, clothes and hair rumpled from the wind and tear tracks trailing down his cheeks.

“No. Just tired,” Hakyeon whispers, and suddenly it strikes Taekwoon how surreal the moment seems, enveloped in quiet and snow, as if they are alone in the entire world. Hakyeon’s face is mere inches from his, lips and cheeks blooming red and gold from the warmth of Taekwoon’s skin, and Taekwoon can feel himself sinking into his gaze as they lock eyes.

“I heard you,” Hakyeon says.

Taekwoon takes a deep breath, pressing their foreheads together. He doesn’t say anything, but the shakiness in his exhale conveys the tension in his body, the fear of Hakyeon wandering, hurt and alone, in the midst of the roaring storm or worse, Hakyeon being hurt because of Taekwoon’s thoughtless screaming.

“Oh, Taekwoon. I’m sorry,” Hakyeon says, face softening. He reaches up to wipe away the tears and his hands linger afterwards, cold and grounding against the sides Taekwoon’s face. “It’ll be alright.”

It’s not a forecast—they both know Wonsik too well for that—more of a vow to try, but something in Taekwoon’s chest still unclenches.

“One day,” he whispers, “You’ll have the chance to shout and hum and sing without a second thought. Until then, you don’t have to be afraid to sing to me. I’ll always listen to you, cursed or not.”

Taekwoon’s next breath shudders as it leaves his chest.

 _One day_ , Hakyeon’s voice echoes in his ears, easing a part of him he hadn’t even known had been straining, stiff and on edge.

“I’m sorry. I was reckless, and I made you worry,” Hakyeon murmurs as he leans forward to kiss the snow off Taekwoon’s lashes, brushing soft lips against his eyelids and down his cheeks. Taekwoon shivers at the touch, tingles racing down his spine.

“Thank you,” spoken against the corner of his mouth and they lapse into silence as their lips move together, sliding soft and dry against each other. Taekwoon can’t help the sigh he breathes into the kiss, a warm white cloud that rises into the air.

It’s faint, but Taekwoon can sense that something seems off.

“You’re warmer,” Taekwoon exhales when they break apart. He purses his lips, brushing at Hakyeon’s face.

“It’s disappearing, I think,” Hakyeon admits.

Taekwoon pulls him closer, rocking forward until they’re embracing again. “Are you alright?”

Hakyeon closes his eyes. “I don’t know. I’m tired and a little cold, and it feels strange.” He sighs. “I need to apologize to Sanghyuk for abandoning him in the car, and I need to apologize to Jaehwan for abandoning his car in the storm. What are we going to do?”

“I texted Jaehwan. He’s on his way. You can call Sanghyuk on the ride.” Taekwoon pauses. “And for the rest, we wait. And endure.”

“Okay,” Hakyeon says, muffled into his shoulder. Then, smaller, “I love you, Taekwoon. I don’t think I’ve told you yet.”

Taekwoon knows, but his heart swells anyway. “I love you, too.”

It’s not much.

It’s a small gesture in a small alley, and he can only clutch Hakyeon with all his might and hope.

It’s a quiet catch of breath, of tears from letting go. It’s bare palms splayed against his skin, creeping under his jacket to share his warmth. It’s a small sigh against his shoulder, barely warmer than the freezing air.

It’s Taekwoon’s heart in exchange for Hakyeon’s, a tentative, delicate, careful offering that really amounts to nothing in the face of the whole world. It’s a promise of quiet understanding, of shared pain and late nights and early breakfasts and a lifetime of learning to pursue forever.

There will be tears and disagreements and sharp words and high walls. There will be more brief kisses than long ones, more vulnerabilities than bandages, more cold than warmth, and more silence than words, but it is these things that mark a home from a house. It is these things that mark _their_ home.

It will happen slowly, as all things seem to happen to Taekwoon when it comes to Hakyeon.

In the same way they came to know each other, in the same way they fell in love, and in the same way they have begun lose their curses, they will learn to be happy.

It won’t really be a specific moment, but morning after morning, waking in the brackets of each other’s arms, giving as many kisses and touches as they receive, flipping coins to cook dinner and wash dishes, mixing their laundry until all their clothes smell the same, and going to bed with Hakyeon’s cold toes pressed to Taekwoon’s shins, they will become accustomed to the lull of satisfaction that will come to color the in-between parts of their lives.

It will be mundane in the best of ways. It will be normal.

Maybe Taekwoon’s heart doesn’t hold much, but it feels filled to bursting with these small things—with Hakyeon—and it’s enough.

It’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> oh man i want to cry this was really stupid of me. i'm so sorry this has probably inconvenienced everyone.


End file.
